Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis feels they were 20 runs short of a par score against Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator after their four-wicket loss at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
After being put into bat, RCB could only manage 172-8 on the board. None of the RCB batters could go past the 35-run mark and failed to get any impetus into their innings.
They kept losing wickets at regular intervals and thus ended well short of a par score. Barring Glenn Maxwell, all the RCB batters got off to starts but none of them could convert them into substantial scores.
Faf du Plessis said after the loss, “With the dew coming, we felt we were short with the bat. Did think we were 20 runs shy of what was a good score. Credit to the boys – they fought really well. That’s all you can ask for. If you look at naturally assessing the pitch and conditions, you would say it’s a 180 pitch because it was swinging upfront and was quite slow.”
The South African added that with the impact player rule and dew coming in, it was always going to be difficult to defend the score. However, he is proud of the way they made it to the playoffs after winning six games on the trot.
Faf added, “But what we’ve found out this season, with the impact player, the par score isn’t enough any more. Also with the dew coming in. Extremely proud. A lot of teams – their wheels would’ve fallen off after 1 from 9. To come back like that, six games in a row, takes a lot of heart and character. We weren’t special tonight in terms of pushing that extra 20 runs with the bat.”
RCB could not bring their best with the bat and it turned out to be the difference in the end. Ravichandran Ashwin returned with impressive figures of 2-19 in his quota of four overs and played a key hand for RR.
