It was the Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s night as they beat Chennai Super Kings to clinch the final playoff spot for the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League with a win by 27 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The epic victory even had the RCB skipper chuffed.
Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, du Plessis was ever so glad to come out of that game as the winner. He also revealed that despite RCB getting a score of 218 on the board, the pitch was not so easy to deal with.
“What a night. Unbelievable and great atmosphere, such a pleasure to finish off the season with a win. Batting first, I think it was the hardest pitch I have ever played on,” he said.
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The talk between Faf and Virat Kohli was that they were planning to go for around 150 more runs after the match was interrupted by rain at the end of the third over of the first innings. The home skipper even branded the pitch as a day 5 track.
“Me and Virat were talking about 140-150 after we came back from the rain break. The communication from the umpires was there was a lot of rain on the pitch, they wanted to push the game and that makes sense. and when we came back my god, I was telling Mitch Santner it was like a day 5 pitch at Ranchi and to get 200 on that was unbelievable,” the RCB skipper commented.
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Reflecting on the second innings, he was well aware of the threat that MS Dhoni posed for RCB but credited the bowlers for bowling out of their skins which resulted in the win.
“We were defending 175, it got a bit close, at one stage, with MS there, I thought, oh dear, he has done it so many times. The way we bowled with the wet ball, we tried to change it,” he added.
In a sporting gesture, the skipper even revealed that he wanted to give away his Player of the Match award to Yash Dayal who managed to script a Rocky-like comeback to get past his demons and deliver the win for RCB with his last over where he dismissed MS Dhoni.
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Faf said, “I wanted to give the Man of the Match to Yash Dayal. The way he bowled was unbelievable. For a man who’s fairly new, he deserves it”.
The captain backed Yash’s skills of bowling the slower deliveries and it turned out to be the right decision in the end.
He added, “Pace off is the best option and trust your skills and enjoy, this is what you trained for. The yorker did not work the 1st ball and he went back to pace off and it worked unbelievably well”.
Faf made sure to thank the fans for their support through this game and revealed that he felt something was brewing when he saw the support from the stands as the home side went on to do a lap of honour to thank the support after the final home game.
“It’s crazy, even when we weren’t winning the fans were here. We felt in the changeroom we felt it was something we had to get right. Coming here tonight, it was set up nicely, CSK v RCB, unbelievable atmosphere and we as a team will do a lap of honour to thank the crowd for the support,” he revealed.
However, after celebrating this win, it is business as usual for the Bengaluru-based unit as they now have to look forward to the knockout games and possibly get their hands on a possible title.
“It’s really important that we enjoy this, great 6 games in a row and the first goal is to get into the knockouts, enjoy this but get back to work tomorrow,” he concluded.
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