Faf Du Plessis’ Royal Challengers Bangalore are flying high in this year’s Indian Premier League. They are now in the second spot in the standings after a comfortable 18 run win against Lucknow Super Giants. RCB skipper led the line with a fine knock of 96 which helped them post a score of 181/6. In reply, LSG kept losing wickets in important phases of the game and eventually fell short of their target by a fair margin. KL Rahul’s side has now three defeats from their 7 games and they sit at the 4th spot. Faf, who missed out on a well-deserved hundred at the end said he hopes that a century is around the corner.
“Due to the nature of this ground, you do run a lot of twos and towards the end, it can be tiring. I got a few 96, and a 97, so hopefully (a century) is around the corner,” Du Plessis said at the post-match presentation. “At the moment, a lot of teams at the top, and many in the middle, and when that happens, it’s always a scramble (for playoffs). But that’s out of our control. We need to just work on our strengths and we actually can get better in a few things,” he said.
Let’s look at major talking points from the RCB Vs LSG game –
Faf missed out on a century again
The 38-year-old charismatic opener was not at his fluent best but with wickets kept falling at the other end, Faf remained at the crease till the last over to score a brilliant 96. He majorly played an anchor role most of the time, but in the final phase, he started attacking. Big boundaries at the DY Patil stadium needed a bit of running between the wickets and for that, even one of the fittest cricketers around the globe, Faf looked a bit tired at the end. In the last over, he tried to make a big shot against Jason Holder’s slower ball and got caught at the boundary.
Kohli’s golden duck
The former RCB captain is not going through a good run with the bat as he got dismissed for a golden duck. The league season is almost half done and Kohli has not made a half-century yet as his highest score so far has been 48. RCB’s fortunes in this tournament have not yet been affected so far by Kohli’s poor form as other batters have taken the responsibility. VK’s average this year in the IPL is under 20 and against LSG, it was his 100th match overall since he last scored a century in 2019.
Hazelwood shines with four wickets
One of the most underrated fast bowlers around, Josh Hazelwood has started to stamp his mark in this year’s IPL as well. The Australian pacer played a big role for CSK in their title-winning campaign as well as for the national team to win the T20 World Cup. RCB had already a good bowling attack with Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj and Hasaranga. But from the last match, it’s Hazelwood who is making the difference for them. Against LSG, he picked up two crucial wickets of Quinton De Kock and Manish Pandey with his first spell. Also did the damage at the death overs picking up dangerous Stoinis and Badoni.
