HYDERABAD, Apr 26: Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Faf du Plessis expressed his delight at his side ending its six-fixture losing streak in the IPL, reminding one and all that there is still a lot left in team’s tank.
Bottom-placed RCB emerged victorious against third-ranked SunRisers Hyderabad, winning by 35 runs. With this win, RCB has two successes in nine clashes, having lost the remaining seven.
“We have worked really hard for the last two games to get to this point,” de Plessis was quoted as saying in an RCB release to the players in the dressing room after the conquest on Thursday.
“We have scratched, we have fought, and everyone can say that they feel like they have given everything, so we deserve this feeling.
“We are all sitting here feeling we are proud of our work, but there is a lot left in the tank.”
Although RCB is not out of the playoffs race yet, they have a lot of catching up to do still needing to win all their remaining matches in order to stay in contention for a play-off berth.
As for the SRH meet, du Plessis took a calculated call in opting to bat first. Ideally, during evening matches, teams prefer to chase due to the dew factor.
But, given SRH’s brutal outing with the bat this season, especially batting first, the decision was commendable and was backed by assistant coach Malolan Rangarajan.
“Faf, well done on taking the call of batting first. It might have been a little bit too obvious, but saying that you want to bat first and make the opponent do something different; brilliant! And, to follow that up with the start both of you (Du Plessis and Virat Kohli) gave was brilliant,” he said.
Additionally, Rangarajan was also all-praise for Rajat Patidar (50 runs off 20 balls) and Karn Sharma (2-29) for their match-winning role.
“Rajat, high-quality innings. It felt like the pitch was spinning a bit, keeping a bit low, but you made it look like we were playing on a concrete pitch,” he continued.
“You got us to a stage where even if we lost a couple of wickets, we were ahead of the game. To me, that was one of the most important phases of the game, and you stood up like the champion you are.
“Karn, I remember speaking to you maybe a week back, had a very honest chat about how you felt about not playing and the work you have put in behind the scenes.
“You worked very well specifically for every batter before the game, and very happy to see how you ended up bowling today; well done,” concluded Rangarajan.
RCB next takes on Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad on Sunday before returning home against the same side on May 4. (PTI)
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