Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli said he was “deeply sorry” for RCB’s failure to make the ongoing Indian Premier League’s knockout stage and vowed to turn things around next season.
RCB finished third from bottom after losing eight of their 14 matches, let down by a weak bowling attack and inconsistent batting which was heavily reliant on Kohli and AB de Villiers.
“We could not pull our weight and we are not very proud of how the season went for us. (I’m) deeply hurt by how we played... deeply sorry for not living up to the expectations of the fans,” Kohli said in a video posted on his Twitter page.
“Having said that, it is all a part of life and you cannot always get what you want. It’s up to the players to understand what to do about this the next season. We’d definitely do everything to give you guys what you want as fans. We really want to turn things around next season,” he added.
RCB did show some late spark in the round-robin stage but the turnaround came a little too late for them to have any chance.
“Next year, I promise you one thing, we will be putting in more effort and more heart than we have ever done for RCB and we won’t disappoint you,” Kohli said.
Kohli is currently sixth in this year’s list of top IPL scorers after amassing 548 runs at an average of 54.80 in 14 matches. De Villiers stands ninth in the same list with 480 runs at an average of 53.33.
In other news, BCCI confirmed on Thursday that Kohli injured his neck during the match against SRH and will therefore miss his county stint with Surrey.
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