- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Ace India batter Virat Kohli on Thursday (20) returned to lead Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their match against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali in the northern state of Punjab.
That happened despite the fact that RCB’s regular captain Faf du Plessis played in the game which Bangalore won by 24 runs.
The sight we've missed for so long! King Kohli back in charge! ??
Only smiles on the faces of both stand-in captains! ??#PlayBold #ನಮ್ಮRCB #IPL2023 #PBKSvRCB pic.twitter.com/7yv6FHd0Ie
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) April 20, 2023
Kohli himself explained what had happened at the time of the toss. After Sam Curran, who was also playing for PBKS as a stand-in skipper for injured Shikhar Dhawan, won the toss and asked Bangalore to bat first.
He said the South African batter was carrying a rib injury which prevented him from fielding and hence the team management decided to play him as an ‘Impact Player’ and give the captain’s cap to the former India captain who had led Bangalore in the IPL for many years after took them to the final in the 2016 edition.
“Faf potentially can’t be fielding today, so he’ll be playing as an impact player, switching with Vyshak. We got to do what we wanted, we would have batted first, the pitch could get slow, some scruff marks will help the bowlers going deep into the game. Taking one game at a time, focussing on our own game, make the most of crunch situations, we haven’t done that so far in the tournament. No other changes for us,” Kohli said at the toss.
The decision did not backfire as an in-form du Plessis slammed 84 runs in just 56 balls to give his team a perfect start in company of Kohli who belted 59 in 47 balls. The two put up 137 runs for the first wicket helping RCB to post a competitive total of 174 for 4 in 20 overs. Later, they bowled Punjab out for 150 runs with pacer Mohammed Siraj taking four wickets for 21 runs.
The win saw RCB jumping to the fifth position in the points table with six points from as many matches while PBKS were at No.7 with the same number of points from the same number of games but due to an inferior net run rate.
