Bangalore: Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Anil Kumble held his team’s poor fielding responsible for the five-wicket defeat against Cape Cobras in the opening Champions League Twenty20 Group C match here.A disappointed Kumble also heaped praise on J P Duminy, whose brilliant unbeaten 52-ball 99 saw the South African team through in the first match of the USD six million tournament.
“When you have 180 on scoreboard, it’s always disappointing to lose. JP Duminy batted really brilliantly. We dropped number of catches that might be one of the reason, but there are other things to be looked after,” Kumble said after the match on Thursday.
“The ball was coming lot quicker on the pitch. We thought that the pitch may play slower and it will spin later, but Duminy put up a great fight,” he added.
Asked why he did not hand over the ball to experienced all-rounder Jacques Kallis in the crucial last over with Cobras needing nine to win, the leg-spinner said, “I thought slower ball will work and that’s why I gave the task to Vinay (Kumar), but it didn’t work.”
Meanwhile, his counterpart Andrew Puttick insisted that inspite of a shaky start, he was confident of chasing down the target.
“We were confident of chasing the target. We should have restricted them much earlier. We had a bad start, but Duminy was superb with the bat. If you get one batsman to play throughout the innings, then you can chase any target,” he said.
Duminy, who was adjudged the Man-of-the-match, revealed that looking at the big target he decided to go for all-out attack as it was the only way the Protea side could have won the match.
“Target of 180 was always big and we had to chase it fast and I had only that thing in my mind,” Duminy said.
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