Following his side’s loss to Delhi Capitals (DC), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) mentor Dinesh Karthik hailed KL Rahul’s knock, calling him a “high-quality middle-order batter”. KL stamped his authority against his former team at his domestic home ground as his knock of 93* in 53 during a tough-looking chase of 164 runs condemned RCB to their second-successive loss at home on Thursday.

Speaking about the inning in the post-match presser, Karthik said, “Any game you lose, is disappointing. The fact that it is a home game does not make it worse. We tried our best, did not happen. Kudos to KL Rahul, for the way he batted. He got a life today, a half chance. If that had been taken, the game could have gone anywhere. He has been showcasing this skill set while playing in the middle-order for a while now. Well done to him.”

“It is challenging to bat at different positions in T20s and he has done really nicely in the recent past. He is a high quality middle order batter. He has tweaked a bit. I have heard he worked with Abhishek Nayar before the IPL and is getting into nice positions to play some nice shots. He always had this skill, nobody doubted it. When he has given himself more freedom, when he has played, it has been nice to watch,” he added.

Karthik also said that the wicket was a “sticky” and was a challenging one for batters.

“It was a bit sticky. If you did see after the first four overs, till the 13th over, we were very much in the game. We did had a wobble, but we reached a decent score and they were struggling. One wicket of Rahul or Stubbs, two high-quality international batters, we would have been back. This is a challenging pitch and has not been helping batters much. In the first match, there was dew and it became easy to bat on in the second innings. Today, there was not much dew, but rain came, the shot they played, difference in the pitch, it was not possible to play it in the first innings,” he added.

He also said that the surface helped wrist spinners in both of the innings, adding, “Kuldeep (Yadav) is a high-quality. Suyash (Sharma) is bound to play high-quality cricket with the skills he has.”

After opting to bowl first, Delhi Capitals, led by the spin attack of Kuldeep Yadav (2/17) and Vipraj Nigam (2/18), restricted the home side to 163/7 in their 20 overs, with standout knocks played by Phil Salt (37 in 17 balls, with four boundaries and three sixes) and Tim David (37* in 20 balls, with two fours and four sixes). This happened despite a powerful 61-run stand between Salt and Virat Kohli (22 in 14 balls, with a four and two sixes),

Delhi Capitals were then reduced to 58/4, but Rahul, along with Tristan Stubbs, showed resistance as they compiled an unbeaten stand of 111 runs for the fifth wicket to take their team to a clinical win. Rahul played an unbeaten knock of 93 off 53, consisting of seven fours and six sixes, while Stubbs scored 38* off 23, with four boundaries and a six, in the team’s fourth win.

DC is at the second place with four wins in all of their four matches, while RCB sits in fourth spot with three wins in five matches and two losses.

KL secured the ‘Player of the Match’ award.

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