Legendary West Indies skipper Brian Lara showed his support towards the Indian and RCB skipper Virat Kohli. The captaincy stint of Virat Kohli for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL, spanning 9 seasons, came to an end last night as RCB played their last game of the ongoing season of IPL.
Royal Challengers Bangalore were knocked out of the IPL 2021 after losing the eliminator 1 by the hands of the Kolkata Knight Riders last night. For the unversed, before the start of the UAE leg, Virat Kohli had announced that he will give up the captaincy duties by the end of this league.
During his nine-year reign as RCB captain, Kohli never tasted IPL success. Despite having some of the best cricketing stars in his team, including South African AB de Villiers and top Australian white-ball specialist Glenn Maxwell in the ranks, the team has failed time and again to get their hands on the prestigious trophy of IPL.
Royal Challengers Bangalore had a great season this time, however, Virat failed to end his RCB’s captaincy career on a high note as his team was eliminated from the IPL 2021.
Legendary captain Brian Lara said that he is “never going to point my finger at Virat Kohli” whatever be the circumstances. He also added that if he had been the owner of RCB he would ask the India skipper to continue in his role as Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper. He said:
“If I was the franchise owner, I would ask Kohli to continue as the skipper. Virat Kohli the player and Virat Kohli the captain are two different people. Such a high profile player and he is still ‘young’ and is willing to play under somebody else. He wants to remain with RCB and I would have asked him to not give up the captaincy,”
He added:
“I would give him the players he wants and focus on the next few years. It’s tough and I am never going to point my finger at Kohli who gives everything on the field. They could have played better cricket and finished at either No. 1 or two. Things might have been different.”
Talking about the match, Brian Lara felt that it was a tough loss. He said that RCB stalwarts should have played out spinner Sunil Narine’s overs and gone after the KKR’s seamers to ensure a better total. He said:
“It was a tough loss. You won the toss and did what you wanted to. They (RCB) were 49 for no loss in five overs. Padikkal got out in the fifth over and then Kohli slowed down a bit, which I understand. If you go at almost 10 runs per over in the powerplay and then go around six in the middle overs, there’s nothing wrong about that but don’t lose so many wickets.”
He added:
“Captain Kohli, (Glenn) Maxwell and ABD (de Villiers) got out to Narine. Even if you would have played him out, these three could have gone after the other bowlers. They didn’t do that and the tailenders were asked to do all the scoring at the end. The thinking was wrong. You don’t need 180 at Sharjah. I was disappointed with the final total they got. Too many cross-batted shots, they could have gone straight down the ground,”
