RCB's batting ran out of steam in the second half of IPL - Katich

Royal Challengers Bangalore's IPL 2020 campaign came to an end after losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator in Abu Dhabi. On a slow track, RCB could muster just 131 with SRH chasing down the target in the final over.

In a game where fortunes swung back and forth, RCB perhaps found themselves 15-20 runs short of a winning score. Simon Katich, RCB's coach, felt that the side struggled to maintain the required tempo with the bat during the second half of the tournament, which eventually hampered their progress. However, he also praised SRH for keeping the lid on the scoring rate with tight bowling.

"We felt we were on track after the 10-game mark and then heading into the last four games, looking back at it now it feels like we ran out of a bit of steam. Particularly with the bat. That's probably the one area that faded a bit after a really good start to the tournament. Credit to the Sunrisers, they squeezed us beautifully, they took early wickets and we were always under pressure trying to play catch-up.

"We realised if we could get a 150 on the board we could be in the game, particularly with the two leggies in the team, seeing the wicket, slow and offering a little bit of turn. To get stuck with our batting today and get only 130 (131) was disappointing and Sunrisers thoroughly deserved to go through," he added.

RCB took the bold decision of opening with Virat Kohli. Unfortunately for the franchise, the plan didn't work as Kohli was dismissed early for just six runs. Katich observed that they tried to maintain a settled combination at the top of the order before deciding to send Kohli up the order for the Eliminator game. Incidentally, Finch played in RCB's first 11 games before Josh Philippe replaced him. The experienced batsman returned to the side for the Eliminator.

"Look, it (the top order) was settled. Aaron Finch didn't get dropped until I think the 11th game. In terms of a settled combination, I think we did do that for the first 10 games. Finchy did not make the runs as he would have liked, we made the change, Josh Philippe came in, he got an opportunity but when it got back to the playoffs coming around, we made a decision that Virat was going to open today. Unfortunately it didn't work but realistically, we didn't chop and change too much. Compared to the past, it was pretty consistent for the bulk of the tournament. Just ended up being a forced change due to form."

Despite getting knocked out, RCB could take quite a few positives from the tournament. Devdutt Padikkal showcased his potential at the top of the order and finished with 473 runs. Katich was pleased with Padikkal's ability to consistently provide a solid platform at the top of the order. He also commended the duo of Washington Sundar and Mohammad Siraj for putting up some good performances.

"There's certainly plenty of positives in the tournament. Obviously we are disappointed to get knocked out when we had a great opportunity to get moving forward. But I guess the great sign for the future is that Padikkal was magnificent at the top of the order. Certainly a tough job for a young man in his first season and he did a magnificent job. He's got all the shots, he's played some very good knocks for us setting us up some big platforms.

"Washington Sundar did a great job for us, Mohammad Siraj showed some signs there with the new ball towards the back-end of the season as well. I thought he bowled well again tonight. There's some very good young talent coming through and hopefully they can continue to get better for us."

One of the areas of concern for RCB was that the middle and lower order batsmen found it difficult to press the accelerator pedal as and when required. "I think we need to get more out of our batsmen - probably in the middle to lower order. Just the consistency, which is never easy for those roles. They are tough roles to play when you are coming out under pressure trying to find the boundary or score 10 an over. We've given few of the guys good opportunities throughout the tournament to see what they can do and hopefully that will continue in the future," Katich said.