Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) suffered its first loss of the season as Chennai Super Kings (CSK) beat the Virat Kohli-led side by 69 runs in an IPL match on Sunday.
Chasing a stiff target of 192 runs, CSK restricted RCB to 122/9 to take pole position in the points table. Reflecting on the loss, Kohli said his team will look at the positives.
"You have to look at it the right way. It's come at the right time for us. You have to understand the things that went wrong. I think this is positive feedback for our side. It's good to get a performance like this out of the way early in the season," Kohli said.
Opting to bat first, CSK rode on Ravindra Jadeja's brilliant unbeaten 62 off just 28 balls, including a record 37-run last over, to reach 191 for the loss of four wickets. With the ball, Jadeja took three wickets to orchestrate a collapse.
"We were there most of the moments in the game, but the key ones we lost badly. Jaddu displaying his skills took the game away from us. You can probably say one guy beat us," Kohli said.
Kohli also said he will back Harshal Patel, who was taken to the cleaners by Jadeja. Patel ended with figures of 4-0-51-3, including the final over of the innings where he gave 37 runs.
"We will continue to give him responsibility. (Harshal) he got both the set batsmen out and plucked all the momentum away. We have to look at this in the right way. Brush it aside and learn from it. We will continue to use guys at No. 3 because we have Maxi and AB to follow. We will continue to use that depth. We'll throw in guys there and ask them to change the game for us," Kohli said.
Right decision
Winning skipper MS Dhoni credited Jadeja for his all-round show and said that his decision to bat first was the right call.
"Jaddu is somebody who can change the game on his own. In the last few years, we've seen a significant change in batting and it's worth it to give him that extra bit of time, extra deliveries. The bowlers have found it difficult to contain left-handers, and that helps as well.
"You can't really predict the quantum of victory. There's no control over how many runs or wickets. When we started we had a conversation about whether to bat or bowl. It's a good wicket but I felt the spinners had something up their sleeves and I felt that the extra few runs Jadeja made helped. 165 would have been par, and once you get 25 extra the opposition has to come a little harder," Dhoni said.
"You cannot make your strategy on the assumption of what dew will do - frankly, some games have been high scoring, some have been low scoring. You have to assess every game and today we made the right decision to bat. We're not doing anything drastically different from what we did last year," he added.
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