Virat and I play with passion, says Ashwin

Fiery celebrations of Virat Kohli and R Ashwin while they were sending off each other to the dugout was the highlight of the match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab here on Wednesday; however, Ashwin tackled the situation by saying that they both reacted out of passion.

"I just played with passion, so does he (Virat). That's it," Ashwin said during the post-match press conference.

Ashwin gave Kohli a raging send-off and when Kohli got the opportunity, he did not shy away from celebrating in a similar manner and gave Punjab's skipper a similar send-off.

Bangalore, who were sent to bat first, scored 202 runs for four wickets in their 20 overs, thanks to AB de Villiers' 82-run inning off just 44 balls which helped his side set this mammoth target for the visitors.

Punjab, who then came out to bat, was unable to chase down the target and lost the match by 17 runs.

Ashwin, talking about the defeat, said that his side lost the execution towards the end.

"I think we lost our execution towards the end. Three overs for 60 odd runs wasn't desirable, but we were in the chase all along and I thought we couldn't finish it off in crunch situation," said Ashwin.

"Whenever we played those crucial moments, we won, and whenever we haven't, we have lost it, because the games are really really tight for us," he added.

Punjab will now visit Hyderabad to compete with Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 29.