Rampaul made the difference in the end: Kohli

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Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli has said that the West Indies all-rounder Ravi Rampaul made all the difference in their nail-biting win over Delhi Daredevils in the super over here.

“When we were buying players this year, I specially told the team management that I want Ravi (Rampaul) in the side because he can be deadly with the bat. And if we didn’t have that six (he had hit in the last over), we would have lost the game. He made the difference in the end,” Kohli told reporters at the post-match press conference.

Royal Challengers Bangalore pulled off a victory in the super over in a thrilling Pepsi Indian Premier League match here last night. Kohli said the fact that Rampaul had done well in the T20 World Cup on similar wickets in Sri Lanka, made him think that the West Indian would be effective in India too.

“He is a brilliant guy to have in a T20 squad. As a bowler, he has been brilliant in these two games that we played against strong batting line-ups. He can bowl at pace and he can put in that odd bouncer with pace,” he said.

Kohli admitted that the RCB should not have taken the match to the super over. “Certainly we played some good consistent cricket. But to be honest today, I can be really happy with the way we won the super over but we didn’t deserve to be in that position.” Stating that RCB “lack common sense”, Kohli said, “I mean I could have gone through the 18th over and would have got the right results that we wanted to have. But that’s the excitement that T20 cricket brings! It’s just like a see-saw.

“When I got out, I got really annoyed because I was the set batsman and wasn’t getting enough strike and that’s why I said we lack common sense.”

Regarding their last-ball defeat against Chennai Super Kings earlier, Kohli said: “A dearth of common sense cost the last match. I think we were 10-15 runs short. It is we who did not have common sense in death overs.”