Bengaluru, May 5 Following Royal Challengers Bengaluru's (RCB) third consecutive victory in the 2024 IPL, skipper Faf du Plessis stressed on maintaining the hard-earned momentum team has established in the past two weeks.
Following their triumph over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on April 25, RCB snapped their six-game losing streak. They continued their winning momentum with a victory against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad on April 28, followed by another win in the reverse fixture on Saturday. The run of three consecutive victories propelled them from the bottom of the table to the seventh position.
"Boys well done tonight, unbelievable performance. From my side I can feel the confidence in the group when we are out there in the field. I hope that belief is starting to filter through the group of how good a team we are when we are playing the style of cricket we want to play. So unbelievable effort on that," du Plessis said on RCB Dressing Room Chat.
"With the bat I know we were not at our best tonight at the last bit of it. That is a point we will talk about in the review. But make sure we celebrate this because we have worked hard three games on the bounce. We take the momentum with us, we take the confidence with us when we move to the next game," the skipper added.
Yash Dayal, Vyshak Vijaykumar and Mohammed Siraj picked two wickets each in a superb bowling performance to bundle out GT for a below-par 147. RCB’s response was aggressive and decisive to begin with, led by Du Plessis and Virat Kohli, as the visitors looked well on course to victory with 92 in the powerplay.
Assistant coach Adam Griffith also complemented the players for putting together the best powerplay displays for RCB in both batting and bowling, among several other brilliant performances.
"From the bowling perspective tonight, 23 for 3, that is the best powerplay of the tournament. We only got hit for two boundaries in that time, so well done, execution was spot-on. We bowled to the conditions perfectly," coach Griffith said.
"We kept talking about the aggressiveness to take wickets and to bowl a team out is always tough in a T20 game, to take 10 wickets is exactly what we were after, so well done. The last four overs, we took 5-26. We finished beautifully. It was a team bowling effort and we all played our part as a group.
"And 92 for 1, that is the best (batting) powerplay RCB has ever had. And Faf, that is the second fastest 50 [off 18 balls] for RCB. In the field, our first direct-hit run-out of the tournament, it was a really important wicket [Shahrukh Khan] for us, so well done Virat," he added.
Also getting praise from the assistant coach was Swapnil Singh, who began the game conceding just one run off the first over, and then hit the winning runs with an unbeaten 15 off 9.
"Special mention for Swappers, you got the broom out there at the end. Started the game for us, finished the game for us, well done," Griffith concluded.
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