IPL 2021: PBKS vs RCB – Kohli reveals the reason behind sending Rajat Patidar at No.3

The Royal Challengers Bangalore succumbed to their second defeat of the season, losing by 34 runs against the Punjab Kings on Friday. Having lost only two out of their seven league games so far, RCB sits in top contention for the Playoffs race with lesser questions to be answered this time around.

Though, their loss against Punjab raised a few questions around the batting order that the team has gone with this year. Skipper Virat Kohli has previously admitted to making the team batting order as per the need and condition of the game. But sending Rajat Patidar ahead of the likes of Glenn Maxwell and AB de Villiers has not left some pleased.

Giving the reason behind sending him at number three, Kohli termed Patidar a ‘quality player’ and cited the balance of the team composition. Notably, the 27-year-old had an impressive Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy season for Madhya Pradesh (221 runs at an average of 44.2 and a strike rate of 153.5).

Rajat’s a quality player: Virat Kohli

“The composition of our team is such that someone like Rajat Patidar bats at three. If you see the last game, he controlled the game for us. We give him that freedom to play at no. 3, and sometimes it doesn’t work out. Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) and AB (AB de Villiers) at 4 and 5 has worked well for us; when there’s a partnership early, one of them will come off. It didn’t work today, but Rajat’s a quality player,” he said.

Speaking about where RCB lost the game, the skipper said:

“They got off to a good start, but we pulled things back somewhat after five down. We should have been chasing 160 when they were 118 for 5, but we gave away 25-odd runs in the end. We focused too much on what the batters were doing and got away from our plans. We gave too many bad balls for boundaries,”

“In the end, we gave away 25 runs too many. One wicket there, and we could have squeezed them. We couldn’t execute our plans. We got some runs nicely as Harshal and Jamieson hit a few runs towards the end. The margin could have been a bigger one otherwise. A loss by 60-65 runs would’ve hurt more in terms of the net run rate. We understand the areas where we lost momentum and need to work on those,” he concluded.

RCB will face KKR at the same venue in Ahmedabad on 3rd May 2021.