IPL 2019, KKR vs RCB: Was AB de Villiers’ injury a blessing in disguise for Virat Kohli's men?

Victories have been very rare for Royal Challengers Bangalore for a couple of seasons now despite boasting some big names in the line up. One such rare day happened at the Eden Gardens tonight when they beat Kolkata Knight Riders despite some jitters in the end, thanks to the big hitting Jamaican Andre Russell and Nitish Rana.

It must be said that the victory for Kohli’s men was against all odds considering KKR play a very dominating brand of cricket at home and are a very tough side to beat. This win must be even more surprising for all the fans because of the news that they got during the toss; Mr. 360 AB de Villiers was injured and not playing.

But the good news for the Bangalore side was his South African teammate Dale Steyn had joined the camp and was ready to play and the right arm quick immediately got into a nice groove by picking up early wickets which was something RCB had failed to do all along this season.

As a neutral cricket lover, one would want to see the batting partnership of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in full flight taking on the bowlers because both are magicians with the bat and match winners in their own right. Both have found batting together comfortable over a long period of time.

But without the South African in the XI tonight, RCB managed to score their highest total of this season and later went on to become a match winning one. So, the big question! Was De Villiers’ injury a blessing in disguise for RCB?

My answer would be yes! RCB as a franchise was becoming a two member team and it looked from the outside that these two great players were not having enough trust in others to play a match winning knock with the bat.

Even though they had the likes of Moeen Ali and Marcus Stoinis, who are international cricketers, RCB was looking like a Kohli-AB team and that put them under pressure and also on other teammates. It looked like they were playing well within themselves and that's tough playing at this level.

The moment De Villiers was not playing, Akshdeep Nath was promoted up the order which was a positive sign despite the wicketkeeper batsman failing to make the most of the opportunity. Moeen Ali was sent in at his preferred No.4 slot and played with a lot of freedom, thereby showcasing to the world that he is a very destructive player himself in this format. It was because of his innings that Kohli could take some time and launch later in his innings. Even Stoinis came out and enjoyed a brief knock in the end to propel RCB to 213, which turned out to be a winning total.

There is no denying the quality of the South African superstar but sometimes even missing out on the best of players can somehow turn out to be a favourable incident which was the case for Virat Kohli and Co. on the night.