Virat Kohli Tweets Emotional Message After RCB’s IPL 2021 Exit: “Not The Result We Wanted”
After a heartbreaking loss to Kolkata Knight Riders in the Eliminator at Sharjah on Monday, Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) IPL 2021 campaign came to an end. Virat Kohli, who stated before the start of the UAE leg of the league that this would be his final season as captain, took to Twitter on Tuesday to send an emotional message to his and RCB fans.
Virat Kohli tweeted, “Not the result we wanted but I am so proud of the character shown by the boys throughout the tournament. A disappointing end but we can hold our heads high. Thank you to all the fans, management & the support staff for your constant support.”
Not the result we wanted but I am so proud of the character shown by the boys throughout the tournament. A disappointing end but we can hold our heads high. Thank you to all the fans, management & the support staff for your constant support. 🙏 @RCBTweets pic.twitter.com/VxZLc5NKAG
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) October 12, 2021
Kohli, who had been captaining RCB since the middle of the 2012 season, was hoping to win his first tournament as a player and captain. He came close in 2016 when he rewrote the record books by scoring 973 runs in the tournament and leading his team to the final on his own. But it was not to be, as his squad was defeated by SunRisers Hyderabad.
Following Kohli’s decision to bat first after winning the toss, RCB scored a below-par total of 138 runs on Monday. Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal got their team off to a fantastic start, putting on 49 runs for the first wicket, but Sunil Narine’s devastating spell of spin bowling broke the back of RCB’s batting. To knock RCB to its knees, Narine took the important wickets of Kohli, AB de Villiers, and Glenn Maxwell.
KKR were in command of their chase until Harshal Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal took a couple of wickets to shift the game’s balance and bring RCB back into contention. Narine returned to undo Harshal and Chahal’s good work by hitting Dan Christian for three big sixes in one over to flip the game around once more. RCB never recovered from that setback and went on to lose by four wickets.
Kohli claimed after the game that he had given his all for his franchise as captain and player and that he would play for the same team till he retired.
