Credit: BCCI/IPL
Royal Challengers Bengaluru registered their seventh win in IPL 2025 after defeating Delhi Capitals by six wickets at Arun Jaitley Stadium. With this win, RCB are now standing at the top of the points table and are among the top contenders to qualify for the playoffs. For RCB, Krunal Pandya and Virat Kohli turned out to be the stars with their respective half-centuries. Kohli played a steady knock of 51(47) runs while Pandya remained unbeaten on 73* runs off 47 balls as RCB chased the target of 163 runs in 18.3 overs, despite getting a poor start.
After the match, Virat Kohli, who is now leading run scorer in IPL 2025, spoke about the importance of rotating the strike and building partnership in T20 cricket rather than going for a boundary on every ball . “I try and make sure my singles and doubles don’t stop and then you keep getting the odd boundary in between. The game never gets stagnant. That’s always been my focus, to keep working on rotating strike, singles and doubles. People are forgetting the importance of stitching partnerships and or going deep into the innings in T20 cricket,” Kohli said.
“I think this year you are seeing you can’t just come out and tee off from ball one. You need have professionalism to read the situation and try get into a position where you can start dominating the bowlers and for that you need to stitch partnerships, and it won’t come easy if on a slow pitch you don’t know how to rotate the strike, he further added.
Suyash Sharma can be the dark horse: Virat Kohli
Speaking further, Virat Kohli also heaped praise on his RCB teammates for all-round performance in the ongoing IPL season which helped RCB to be at the top of the points table. He also mentioned leg spinner Suyash Sharma and the impact he made despite not getting many wickets this year. Kohli believes Suyash can turn out to be a dark horse for RCB in IPL 2025.
“It's looking good for us. We have Romario (Shepherd) after Tim (David) as well for extra added power. That firepower at the back end definitely helps. Hazlewood and Bhuvi are world class bowlers. There's a reason why he has the Purple Cap on his head. Krunal bowled well too. Don't forget that Suyash can be the dark horse as well. He may not have got the wickets but he has been good,” Virat Kohli said.
