Written by Vaibhav Tripathi
Faf du Plessis, the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), was delighted with the team’s emphatic 112-run triumph over Rajasthan Royals in a crunch game at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium. After batting to score 171, RCB skittled the Royals for just 59, the third-lowest score in IPL history.
“Really good for our NRR,” said du Plessis at the post-match presentation. “Tough pitch. We batted first and assessed the conditions. We batted in the powerplay and thought 160 will be a good score. We have had a good set-up till the 15th over. But we managed to capitalise on the momentum shift at the end. Great job.“[Michael] Bracewell would want to bowl on this every day of the week. We needed a left-arm spinner. Maybe Shahbaz could have been an option. Wrist-spin could have been an attacking option. Hopefully, we can set it up for the last game at the Chinnaswamy. Today was a good one for the team. They needed this confidence to go into the last two games.”
The bowling hero for RCB was Wayne Parnell, with match-winning figures of 3-10 from three overs. Parnell, who played against Virat Kohli in the Under-19 World Cup final in 2008, was pleased to mark his return to the XI with the Player of the Match award.
“Obviously, credit to our batters,” he said after the game. “The last over gave us momentum. We could execute well. The message was to take pace off the ball. Bowl it at the sticks. We were able to execute everything. The surface was low, slow and skiddy. Was trying to make them play across the line. When I wasn’t playing, I was preparing. It is a long tournament and you need to be switched on every game.”