Twitter Reactions: ABD magnificent 90 in 39 balls helped Royal Challengers Bangalore to beat Delhi Daredevils

Crcike News: AB De Villiers 90 from just 39 balls overshadowed Rishabh Pant’s 48-ball 85 to take Royal Challengers Bangalore to fifth in the IPL 2018 points table. And on the other hand Delhi Daredevils remain at the bottom of the table. 

AB de Villiers (Man of the Match): It’s one of those nights when you see the ball well. The last two innings I wasn’t hitting it too well, but today I felt it coming off the middle, watched it nice and early, bought myself that extra split second to make decisions and that’s when I need to cash in. When you do get on top of the bowler, you have to take him down. This is the best crowd in the world; I love playing here. They keep backing us every game but I must say, whenever you get into that zone that crowd is only a buzz. And most of it today was a buzz. [On the ‘genius’ on his bat] I didn’t give myself that name, MRF did it (smiles). It’s a privilege playing with these bats, it’s some good stuff.

Virat Kohli  (Winning skipper): I think the 30 runs tonight is much better than the 90 I got in the last game. Two points are very crucial for us at this stage. We really thought about how to go about it, and we still have a few areas. The guy (AB) in our team gives us plenty of reasons to smile. We understand situations, understand each other’s games well. He started off in a great way, my job then became to stick it out, string in a 65-70 run partnership. And then the opposition know they have to protect the game, rather than going for a win. It was a pity I couldn’t stay till the end, but Corey and Mandy did really well to support him. They kept taking singles with positive intent and that is great to see. But AB just keeps taking the game away and that’s why there’s no doubt why he’s the best player in the world. [On Boult’s catch] It’s one of those things you see regularly in the IPL. It’s good for the fans as well and when you look back you don’t really feel bad getting out to a catch like that, full credit to Trent. Till the 15-over mark we were really good with the ball and with the bat even after we lost early wickets we strung in small partnerships. Plenty of positives but plenty of areas where we can improve as well. The crowd has always supported us in huge numbers; if the team believes, the crowd believes in us as well. We need the energy of the crowd and the players and we’ll keep doing it for them, giving it our everything and keep pushing forward for them.

Gautam Gambhir (Losing skipper): I thought AB took the game away from us, the way he batted. We were very much in the game after scoring 175. At one point getting to 150-155 looked difficult. It was a bit tacky in the first six overs. Shreyas was unbelievable, Pant was unbelievable too. Our spinners could have bowled better against AB in the first six overs. When the spinners were bowling the ball was gripping as the ball was new, the seam was new, one wicket there and it was our game. AB took on the spinners and got away with it. (On Boult’s catch) It’s the best catch I’ve ever seen. It was unbelievable because he’s a left hander and he grabbed it in his right hand. It’s never easy. Things are getting desperate for us and hopefully we can turn things around when we go back home. We are professional cricketers and there can’t be excuses. Hopefully we can win a few and get the momentum in our favor. If you see the points table most of the teams are close to each other. So we need to reach the mid of the table first and then maybe in the top four.

Here are the tweets.