Focus is to win more away games, says Kohli

B D Naratankar writes

Bangalore, May 3 (PTI) Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli today said that his team is focussing on winning more away games in order to increase the chances of qualifying for the knockout stage in this edition of Indian Premier League.

"It is the away games we are focusing on more than how many to play here. We are quite familiar with what we need to do in Bangalore, but last year our drawback was we did not win away games and we could not qualify," he told reporters here on the eve of the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad tomorrow at Chinnaswamy stadium.

However, the team needs to play good cricket in the remaining games, Kohli said. Moreover, the team will take the Indian leg of the IPL fresh even if they would have won all the five games at UAE, he said.

"We take this as fresh start in the IPL regardless even if we had won five games out of five - still take this as fresh start," he said.

Replying to a query, Kohli said losing should hurt but not annoy, otherwise the team drifts away and the focus goes awry.

"Losing should hurt but it should not annoy you - to drift away from what you have to do on the field," he said.

It is the job of the coach and the captain to keep the team together and players should not panic, Kohli said.

"If you panic, then the guys are obviously scatter and not play together as an unit. I have gone through it before. The best way out of this is stay relaxed and focus on holding on to the momentum," he said.

Kohli said of all the defeats they faced, losing to Kolkota Knight Riders hurt them the most because they lost from a winning position.

"The one we lost to Kolkota hurt the most because the other two games we did not play good cricket. We did not deserve to win those, to be honest," he said.

Kohli said that RCB losing last three games in UAE which was a wake-up call for them to rectify their mistakes. "It is good we lost - it is like wake up call. It helped us rectify our mistakes," he added.

Kohli further said it is all about keeping calm in tournament such as the IPL. "When we start panicking, it doesn't help. It becomes difficult to bounce back," he said.