Royal Challengers Bangalore had an off-day, says coach Mike Hesson

Dubai, October 25: After stumbling to an eight-wicket loss against the Chennai Super Kings', Royal Challengers Bangalore, Director of Cricket, Mike Hesson said the bowlers had an off day with the ball and they failed to execute properly. CSK comfortably chased down the target of 146 with eight wickets in hand and 8 balls to spare.

Ruturaj Gaikwad played an unbeaten knock of 65 to take MS Dhoni's side over the line. Ambati Rayudu also played useful innings of 39 while du Plessis and MS Dhoni scored 25 and 19 respectively.

"Well, I wouldn't say we felt comfortable with the score we had, I think we felt that we had a score we could defend if we bowled and fielded well, which we didn't, from a batting point of view, we failed to build up the intensity, fair play to CSK spinners, they bowled nicely and we struggled to put the foot down. With the ball, we failed to execute as well as we have done in the past matches this season. From the execution point of view, it was a bit disappointing," said Hesson during the post-match presentation.

"It was an off day, with the ball we have been pretty consistent throughout, I do not think we adapted that well to the conditions like we have done in this tournament, the ball swung around in Abu Dhabi in our match against KKR. Today, we were required to be patient, we just did not hit our length, credit goes to Gaikwad, he played nicely," he added.

Earlier, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers played knocks of 50 and 39 respectively as Royal Challengers Bangalore posted a total of 145/6 in the allotted 20 overs.

For CSK, Sam Curran scalped three wickets while Deepak Chahar returned with two wickets.

Talking about the decision to bat first, Hesson said: "We saw the game last night, we saw the ball turning, we knew that CSK were likely to play left-arm spinners, it was a double-edged sword, the decision to bat first was based on the conditions.

"We saw throughout that it is a tough wicket to come out and start hitting from ball one, two best in the business batters like Kohli and de Villiers batted well, but it was difficult to put the foot down if the bowlers were bowling well on this wicket, it would have been far easier to hit the ball if we had set batsman at the crease," he added.

RCB is currently in the third position in the points table with 14 points from 11 matches. The side will next take on Mumbai Indians on Wednesday, October 28 at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.