Abu Dhabi: Srikar Bharat and Glenn Maxwell helped Royal Challengers Bangalore bag a six-wicket win as the pair made 111 off 63 to chase down a target of 165 on the final ball of the game against Delhi. Needing five off the last ball, Bharat smashed a six against Avesh Khan to seal the win.Virat Kohli, Winning captain, said, ‘Unbelievable game. We had nothing to lose, but it was a competitive game which is always the case in the IPL. To lose wickets and to still beat the team at the top of the table feels good. We have beaten them twice now. The way AB batted in the beginning and then with KS (Bharat) and Maxwell in the end was unbelievable. The reality was that we had to win by 160 runs, and we thought that there could be a collapse or something. We thought of it the other way around. This gives us the confidence that we can pull off a game from any situation. We haven’t chased much in this tournament. Number three hasn’t been an issue. We wanted to give Christian some time, he was batting really well in the middle. We took that chance and it didn’t come off. We knew KS was a guy who could come in at three at any stage. I think we need to sharpen up in the field. Sometimes the boundaries that go at crucial stages, could be critical. You need to be switched on always. A win like this gives you the confidence. We have played well in Sharjah. We have been able to handle the conditions and keep the opposition in check if things have gotten away from us. We have the experience already and we need to utilize it as much as possible to keep moving on in this tournament.
AB de Villiers, said, ‘Fantastic win, we’re very happy with that, came up short in the last game, but we came up with a last ball win tonight, so happy. We showed a lot of character as a bowling group, we haven’t always had the best of starts in the first six, in which we’re better tonight. We didn’t let Dhawan and Shaw get off to a great start and then pulled things back very well in the back-end. It’s been amazing, shows once again that there is a lot of character in this bowling unit, we’ll need a lot more, but very happy with the way the boys have gone. I’m feeling good, haven’t had a lot of opportunities so far, I’m hitting the ball well, had a bit of a slow start today – thought they bowled well to me on a deck that wasn’t easy to bat on, but I’m striking them well, working hard at the nets and ready to come for the next matches. I think we need to do what we are doing and maye be up it a notch, have been speaking about peaking at the right time. We haven’t played our absolute best, but we’re getting close. If we can get that twitch in the finals, hopefully, there are good things to come.’
Rishabh Pant, losing captain, said, ‘See, in T20s, you talk a lot about fielding and if you field like we did tonight, the other team deserves to win. We lost too many wickets in the middle, but I think the total was decent enough on this kind of a wicket, but we need to do better in the field next time. We were trying to keep it simple most of the time, but it was difficult for the bowler to grip the ball due to the dew. Not feeling great at the moment, these are the kind of games you’d need to win, but we did put in our 100%’.