Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis was delighted after his team defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 18 runs at the Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy, Mumbai on Tuesday. RCB posted a par score of 181 runs after KL Rahul won the toss and decided to bowl first.
RCB got off to a horrible start as Dushmantha Chameera dismissed Anuj Rawat and Virat Kohli in the first over. Subsequently, Glenn Maxwell and Suyash Prabhudessai were also dismissed cheaply and RCB was tottering at 62-4.
However, Faf du Plessis and Shahbaz Ahmed added 70 runs for the fifth wicket. Du Plessis played a fine knock of 96 runs off just 64 balls as he batted at the top of his game.
On the other hand, Josh Hazlewood gave a perfect start to RCB as he dismissed Quinton de Kock and Manish Pandey early in the innings. Harshal Patel then dismissed KL Rahul with an innocuous delivery down the leg-side.
Krunal Pandya top-scored for LSG as he added 42 runs but RCB bowlers were right on the money. Hazlewood had another good outing as he returned with impressive figures of 4-25. Furthermore, Mohammed Siraj conceded only 31 runs whereas Shahbaz Ahmed gave away 25 runs in his quota of four overs.
Harshal Patel took two wickets but he was taken for 47 runs in his allotted four overs. However, Faf feels Patel is going to have a special season for RCB once again.
Faf du Plessis, who was awarded the Player of the Match, said in the post-match presentation, “Due to the nature of this ground, you do run a lot of 2s and towards the end, it can be tiring. I got a few 96, and a 97, so hopefully (a ton) is around the corner. We needed someone to stabilize the innings and then get going at the back end. Today, grateful that I could do it. Important that I am able to follow my blueprint of batting. If you bowled slow into the wicket to the big boundary, it never felt like you had enough power to clear that boundary. I was tired but was still hoping that I could hit some at the end. Early in the innings, there was help for the bowlers and they did get us in trouble but we found a way.”
He added, “Our bowlers then stuck to the plans and when you do that on a ground like this, it’s tough for the batters. At the moment, lot of teams at the top, and many in the middle, and when that happens, it’s always a scramble (for playoff spots). But that’s out of our control. We need to just work on our strengths and we actually can get better in a few things. Need one guy to bat through consistently, but we haven’t had that frequently. DK has saved us quite a bit, hopefully, today is a stepping stone in that direction. Before the last two games, it (death bowling) was a concern as we were getting hit in areas we shouldn’t have been. But in the last two games, we’ve got hit to where we’ve wanted to. Harshal has been exceptional, watch out for him, he’s going to be special for the rest of the season too.”
RCB have won five out of their seven matches and they will look to continue the good show. The Faf du Plessis-led team will next lock horns against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai on Saturday.
