SuperStats

KL Rahul makes the most of Virat Kohli's lapses

According to ESPNcricinfo's Luck Index, Virat Kohli's second drop of KL Rahul cost Royal Challengers 26 runs

After 16 overs in their match against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kings XI Punjab were on 132 for 3 - not a huge total but quite a reasonable one. Then, Virat Kohli dropped KL Rahul - not once but twice. Rahul scored 48 off 13 balls after the first drop, and 42 off nine after the second drop. Kings XI scored 60 off the last three overs with 49 coming off the last two.
So how much were the two drops worth? Kohli pegged it at "35 to 40 runs" in the post-match presentation.
"I think I have to stand in front and take the brunt of it, not the best day in the office, couple of important chances off KL when he was set," he said. "That cost us about 35 to 40 runs at the later stage. Maybe if we restricted them to under 180, we wouldn't have been under pressure to go from ball one, chasing close to 210. We know exactly where we went wrong, and it's time to put my hand up and say, yeah, couple of important chances went down."
According to ESPNcricinfo's Luck Index, the second drop, which came at the end of the 18th over, cost Royal Challengers 26 runs, while the first one cost 24. That means, had Kohli taken that second catch at the end of the 18th over, Kings XI would have scored only 23 off the last two overs instead of 49. This value is calculated by taking into account the batsmen to follow, and their scoring patterns in the relevant overs - the death overs in this case.
With Glenn Maxwell already dismissed, Kings XI had James Neesham and Sarfaraz Khan to follow. Both are pretty good hitters, but you wouldn't have expected them to score at the massive rate Rahul managed in the last couple of overs.
The value for the first drop is slightly lesser than the second one, because Rahul scored seven runs off five balls between the two dropped catches (including those two balls). That was a rate that could have been replicated by the batsmen to follow, but after the second drop, Rahul was unstoppable.
Kings XI scored 74 in the last four overs, which is 10 more than has ever been scored in the last four overs of a T20 game in Dubai. That was because Rahul took his game to another level, and because Kohli gave him the opportunity - two, in fact - to do so.