Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batsman AB de Villiers admitted that it was “terrible feeling to lose three matches in a row” aftet they were handed a five-wicket defeat by Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday.

“It’s a terrible feeling to lose three in a row. We never wanted to do that. But that’s the nature of the tournament. Anything can happen. If you lose three in a row, you can win three in a row as well,” de Villiers said.

Advertisement

“The game against Delhi is a big name and we all know that. We have to come out with our best cricket on the day and if we do that things are going to be good for us,” he said, as quoted by PTI, at the press conference after RCB lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad.

After restricting Virat Kohli’s men to a paltry total of 120/7, Hyderabad had a mini collapse in the middle-order before Jason Holder smashed unbeaten 26 off 10 balls to help his team sail through with more than five overs to spare. The West Indian had earlier taken 2/27 with the ball.

However, de Villiers believed that the turning point of the match was when he and opener Josh Phillipe wen out quickly.

“The turning point was when Josh and I got out back to back. That cost us 20-30 runs, that was unfortunate. but at the end of the day, that might not have been enough in any way. The field got wet in the second innings which changed the conditions quite a bit. Maybe 140 would have been short in any way,” he said.

With the five-wicket win over RCB in Sharjah, Hyderabad jumped from seventh place to fourth on the points table. Bangalore, on the other hand, suffered their third straight defeat and will now face Delhi Capitals in a do-or-die situation in their last league match.

Now, as many as four teams — SRH (net run rate +0.555), Kings XI Punjab (-0.133), Rajasthan Royals (-0.377), and Kolkata Knight Riders (-0.467) — are locked at 12 points each. They all have one match left to play, and their final positions could be determined by the net run rate.