Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis showered praise on Yash Dayal after they qualified for the playoffs. RCB defeated the defending champions CSK by 27 runs at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Saturday.
RCB needed to win by at least 18 runs to topple CSK’s Net Run Rate and Yash Dayal played a key hand. The left-arm seamer needed to defend 17 runs in the final over and he was put under pressure from the get-go as CSK former skipper MS Dhoni smashed him for a 110-m six on the first ball.
But the wall went outside the stadium and Dayal was able to execute better with the new ball. He bamboozled Dhoni with a back-of-the-hand slower ball and bowled more three dots to seal the deal for RCB.
Dayal returned with figures of 2-42 in his four overs quota. Earlier in the innings, Dayal got the crucial wicket of Daryl Mitchell, who was caught by Virat Kohli at mid-off.
Faf du Plessis said in the post-match presentation, “We were defending 175, it got a bit close, at one stage, with MS there, I thought, oh dear, he has done it so many times. The way we bowled with the wet ball was unbelievable, we tried to change it. I dedicate this Man of the Match to Yash Dayal. The way he bowled was unbelievable. For a man who’s fairly new, he deserves it. [on what he told Dayal before the last over] Pace off is the best option on this pitch and trust your skills and enjoy, this is what you trained for. The yorker did not work the 1st ball and he went back to pace off and it worked unbelievably well.”
Meanwhile, after being put into bat, RCB scored 31 in the first three overs before rain intervened. After the halt, the ball was turning square but Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli did a great job in adding 78 runs for the opening alliance.
Faf added, “What a night. Unbelievable and such a great atmosphere, such a pleasure to finish off the season at home with a win. Batting first, I think it was the hardest pitch I have ever played on in T20s. Myself and Virat were talking about 140-150 after we came back from the rain break. The communication from the umpires was there was a lot of rain on the pitch, they wanted to push the game and that makes sense. When we came back, my goodness, I was telling Mitch Santner it was like a day 5 Test match at Ranchi and to get 200 on that was unbelievable. The last 6 games the batters have batted with good intent and good strike-rate. We were slow earlier on and we wanted more intent and that was awesome.”
After managing a solitary win in their first eight matches, RCB was able to turn the tables, winning six games on the trot to qualify for the playoffs.
RCB will be in action against either RR or SRH in the Eliminator at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
