Sloppy fielding cost us - Vettori

Daniel Vettori, the Royal Challengers Bangalore captain, has put down the narrow defeat to the Warriors in the opening game of the Champions League Twenty20 to "sloppy fielding" and "poor execution". There were a couple of dropped catches, misfields and a missed run-out in the Warriors' chase of 173 and the bowlers, too, erred at the death during a late onslaught by the batsmen.

"I thought at the halfway stage that 172 was a pretty good score," Vettori said. "Our batsmen maintained a standard, and at the halfway stage, I thought we could win. We were in a good position till the last few overs, and then some sloppy fielding and poor execution cost us the match. There were a few half-good overs and the match slipped."

The Warriors stole a couple off the final delivery of the high-scoring match to seal a three-wicket win. "It was a tricky wicket," Vettori said. "When I say tricky, you had to get the length right. If it was a little full or a little short, you got hit; most wickets fell to length balls."

In a see-saw game, Royal Challengers were on top when Warriors were reduced to 82 for 4 in the 12th over. Johan Botha and Ashwell Prince then staged an excellent recovery to put their team in the ascendancy but the Warriors only sneaked through in the end after a couple of more twists.

"We needed 13 off 7, that last ball was going to be important. Thirteen off the last over with more than two a ball is quite tough. Nicky [Boje] came in and hit the first one for six, and that took a lot of pressure off us for the last over," Botha, the Warriors captain, said. Botha smashed 42 off 24 balls and added 73 in quick time in the company of Prince, who made 74.

"When I came in I just wanted to get a little bit of a partnership going," Botha added. "Once I got to about 10 or 15, I said I'm going to keep playing [like that]. It looked like it was my night, really. I kept going, there were a couple of top-edges. One went for the six, the other fell short of the fielder. When it goes for you, you've got to run with it. As soon as we got some momentum, things started to flow nicely."