'We've been slow on the learnings' - Josh Hazlewood after RCB's third consecutive defeat at home

Josh-Hazlewood. (Photo Source: X)

The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) suffered a third consecutive defeat at their home ground, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, as they lost to the Punjab Kings (PBKS) by five wickets on April 18. RCB pacer Josh Hazlewood has called out the batters for not learning from their past mistakes.

RCB stuttered to 95/9 in a rain-interrupted match, which was reduced to 14 overs per side. All the batters threw away their wickets at regular intervals, with only Tim David managing to get some runs to save his team from a bigger embarassment. He scored a blistering 50 runs off just 26 balls, including five boundaries and three sixes. 

Hazlewood claimed three wickets and conceded just 14 runs in three overs. Even Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/26) held his nerve and tried to rescue RCB during the low-total run-chase. The Australian pacer spoke about the atypical Chinnaswamy wicket, which led to his downfall for the home team. 

"Yeah, I think it's not a typical Chinnaswamy wicket. Obviously the bounce has always been there, but it's in past years, it's probably been more consistent. Yeah, it's obviously three (defeats) in a row now at home. It's just we've probably been a bit slow on the learnings from the first two games and didn't put that into practice as well as we could have, probably in those first probably six to eight overs, obviously, with the score the way it was," Hazlewood said at the post-match press conference.

I think the bowling definitely improved: Josh Hazlewood

Despite RCB's poor performance in home games, Hazlewood seemed to be confident about a comeback in the upcoming matches as RCB have slipped a place and come down to the fourth position in the points table. He also praised the bowling unit for improving after the last two matches.

"But we'll dive into this game and, you know, probably more so when we get back to Bangalore and really go through in detail and with a fine tooth comb and come up with a few ideas of where we can learn and improve. I think the bowling definitely improved from the last two outings. So sort of we're slowly getting there, but probably not quick enough," added Hazlewood.