Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) road to the playoffs has become more arduous after they tasted defeat at the hands of SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Saturday and star batsman AB de Villiers said that it is a “terrible feeling” to lose three games on the trot. Wriddhiman Saha and Jason Holder played knocks of 39 and 26 respectively as SRH defeated RCB at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium to keep their own hopes alive of reaching the last four. RCB have now lost three matches in a row, which has opened up numerous possibilities for the top four, and the race for the playoffs has become more intense.
“It’s a terrible feeling to lose three in a row, you never want to do that. But that’s the nature of this tournament, anything can happen. If you lose three in a row, you can win three in a row as well and that will be our thinking looking forward,” said De Villiers in the post-match press conference.
De Villiers feels that the pitch in Sharjah was slow which eventually put pressure on the batsman.
“The Sharjah wicket was very slow, the outfield was slow as well so punching through covers didn’t go for four, it went for one or two. That also put a lot of pressure,” said the right-handed batsman.
“I thought they were quite boring out there which was what was required on this wicket. There was enough in the wicket to do the basics well, they hit the top of the wicket with the odd cutter on a good length. They backed that up with very good fielding,” he added.
With this win, SRH climbed to the fourth spot in the IPL Points Table with 12 points from 13 matches. On the other hand, RCB are still second with 14 points from 13 matches.
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RCB will now face Delhi Capitals in their last league game at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Monday, November 2.
“The Delhi game is a big game we all know that. We’re going to have to come out with our best cricket on the day. If we do, things will look up very well for us,” De Villiers said.
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