Royal Challengers Bangalore’s charismatic South African skipper Faf du Plessis is hoping to cash in on the momentum of scoring a fine 64-ball 96 — which bulldozed Lucknow Super Giants — to score a century in IPL 2022 soon.
It was an emphatic win for RCB as they sealed their fifth win of the season, surpassing LSG in an emphatic all-round display that needed some effort. While du Plessis played a captain’s knock, it was Shahbaz Ahmed who played the perfect anchor at the other end, steadying the innings. The duo stitched together a crucial stand of 70 runs.
Du Plessis indicated that had it been a smaller ground, he would have crossed the century mark with ease, but with DY Patil’s expansive boundaries, it became a bit of an effort.
“Because of the nature of the (DY Patil) ground, it’s quite big so you run a lot of twos. Towards the end, it can get a little bit tiring but it’s a good way to keep your fitness up. My elusive IPL hundred… I feel it is around the corner,” said the 37-year-old South African.
On being awarded the player of the match in the 18-run win, he said, “Amazingly, we were in trouble, as we were in the last three or four games, but we have a knack of someone getting through it, stabilising the innings, having composure and then towards the end we’re a very dangerous team. I’m grateful that I could do it. I was hungry for some runs. I wanted to make a big impact because the last few games had been quiet for me.”
He shed light on how he approached the game.
“I went through my own processes and blueprint for scoring runs so I had a clear mental image going into this match and glad that it paid off. (I was tiring) but I was still in a mode where I felt I could still hit the ball. If you bowled slow into the wicket to the big boundary, the ball stopped quite a bit so you never felt like you had enough power to clear the boundary,” du Plessis told RCB Bold diaries.
“I think it was evident from everyone that big boundaries if you bowled well it was difficult to score boundaries. There was quite a bit happening in those first three or four overs. They got us in trouble and somehow, we found a way and just stuck right through the innings. But the bowlers are really on the top of their game.”
Australian pace bowler Josh Hazelwood too was awestruck with the rampant performance of his skipper, saying that du Plessis was waiting to explode.
“Faf’s been brewing. He’s had a few lean games coming off but tonight he took his time and kept the score going along and finished with a bang so credit to him. (On the ball not called a wide before Stoinis wicket) I tried to turn around and get back to my mark as quickly as I could. I got pretty lucky on that one so I might have to get him a beer after that,” said Hazlewood.
