It was another horrible outing for Royal Challengers Bengaluru as they slumped to their sixth loss in seven matches in the ongoing IPL 2024. The Faf du Plessis-led side was completely outplayed by Sunrisers Hyderabad who posted the highest team total in the history of the competition on Monday. Batting first, RCB bowlers looked completely helpless as Travis Head slammed a 39-ball ton and Heinrich Klaasen scored a fiery half-century to guide SRH to a mammoth 287/3 in 20 overs. It was the highest team total in IPL history as SRH broke their own record that they registered earlier in IPL 2024 against Mumbai Indians. As SRH batters ran riot in Bengaluru, disappointment was visible on star batter Virat Kohli's face and his reactions to the loss has gone viral on social media.
Kohli made a great start to his innings while chasing 288 but he was ultimately dismissed for 42 after he completely missed a delivery from Mayank Markande that crashed into his stumps.
RCB skipper Faf Du Plessis went on to say that there is "no way to hide" for the team.
"Much better (batting performance) from us, that was a proper T20 wicket. Just tried to get close in the end, but 280 was very far. It's tough. We tried a few things, we tried different things. There's no way to hide when your confidence is low. The fast bowlers found it quite difficult out there. Similar to the batting perspective, we need to work on few areas. Need to make sure the run rate doesn't go down after powerplay. The guys put up their hand and never gave up (in the run chase)," Faf explained.
"It was good to see the fight, 30-40 runs from the bowling perspective was a bit too much. It's important to go away and freshen your mind, it's such a mental game. Sometimes you feel your mind is going to explode. When you get back to the contest you have to give full commitment," he added.