“We’ll certainly have to look at our methods and come back stronger” - Head coach Sanjay Bangar on RCB’s loss to KKR

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) head coach Sanjay Bangar admitted that the team’s batters could have been more judicious in their shot selection against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Bangar added that they will go back to the drawing table and look to work on correcting their mistakes.

KKR hammered RCB by 81 runs in match number nine of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at Eden Gardens on Thursday, April 6. Batting first, Kolkata put up 204/7 on the board. In the chase, RCB were bundled out for 123 in 17.4 overs.

Reflecting on the defeat, Bangar said that some of the batters might not be too pleased with the strokes they played. Speaking at a post-match press conference, he commented:

“Some of our batsmen, in hindsight, if they look back on their innings, probably they were not the time to attempt those big shots. That is something that we will certainly discuss with the players. Such games can happen because T20 is such a short format where if you lose momentum then the pressure sort of builds on you.

"We’ll go back to the drawing room and look to alter the mistakes that we did in this game.”

The first four wickets to fall in RCB’s chase were bowled dismissals effected by Kolkata’s spinners. Sharing his views on what went wrong, Bangar explained:

“A lot of our batsmen were beaten on the inside edge of the bat. That is something that you generally do not tend to do against bowlers who do not turn the ball that much. That was an error that our batsmen did under pressure and something for us to work on going forward. We’ll certainly have to look at our methods and come back stronger.”

Varun Chakaravarthy claimed 4/15, while Sunil Narine picked up 2/16 as KKR never allowed Bangalore a whiff in the chase.

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“I thought we were outplayed in all departments of the game” - Sanjay Bangar

The match began on a much more positive note for RCB as they reduced KKR to 89/5. However, Shardul Thakur (68 off 29) and Rinku Singh (46 off 33) featured in a century stand to lift the batting side.

According to Bangar, Bangalore were outplayed in the contest. He opined:

“I thought we were outplayed in all departments of the game. Yes, we took a couple of wickets with the new ball and then through the middle. But, the way Rinku batted and the way Shardul batted, I felt that they just took the game away from us. Then, obviously, with the bat nothing clicked for us. You can sum up the game like that only.”

RCB’s next match will be against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Monday, April 10.