Faf du Plessis’ Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) lost by 28 runs against KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the 15th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) on April 2, 2024 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Du Plessis was lucky in the toss as the coin fell in his favor and he decided to invite Lucknow Super Giants to bat first in the match. Both teams made notable changes to their game with the home team bringing in Reece Topley for Alzarri Joseph and LSG replacing the injured Mohsin Khan with Yash Thakur.
First they bowled, the RCB players were taken to the cleaners by Quinton de Kock and later KL Rahul also joined the party and smoked the players. Glenn Maxwell’s spin bowling stopped the carnage as he dismissed Rahul for 20 in the sixth over. Soon, Devdutt Padikkal departed for 6 in the ninth over.
Marcus Stoinis then aggressively joined hands with De Kock and the batting duo to push RCB on the back foot. They added 56 runs together before Maxwell struck again to remove his Australian teammate for 24. In the end, Nicholas Pooran (40) showed batting brilliance and helped LSG score 181/5 on the board.
LSG’s best player in the batting department was Quinton de Kock, who scored 81 runs off 56 balls, while RCB’s best wicket-taker was Glenn Maxwell, who finished with figures of 2/23.
Chasing the target, RCB batsmen looked clueless against the pace of Mayank Yadav who rattled the batsmen with rippers. Mahipal Lomror emerged as RCB’s best player in the batting department as he scored 33 runs while batting in the lower order. However, there was not much support from the other end which meant RCB were bowled out for 153. From LSG, Mayank Yadav picked up 3 wickets and gave away just 14 runs.
Mistakes like that can cost you in the IPL – Faf du Plessis
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) captain Faf du Plessis went all out in the post-match presentation ceremony and criticized the fielders for doing a poor job against LSG. He said:
“Successful (dropped catches cost us). “Two very good players, QdK when he was at 25-30 and Nicky P was at 2, 60-65 extra runs, mistakes like that can cost you in the IPL.”
Faf du Plessis further praised LSG Express pacer Mayank Yadav, saying that he is very accurate with his lines and lengths. Faf du Plessis stated:
“It’s a new action that you haven’t faced before, and if they have pace then you need time to get used to it (on Mayank). But his ability to control length and have accuracy is impressive.”
Faf du Plessis once again criticized his players for not being up to par in the powerplay overs. He said:
“I didn’t think we were very good with our bowling, especially in the powerplay, Maxwell picked it up and there were some nice cues in the death overs.”
Faf du Plessis left by criticizing his batsmen for not being able to form good partnerships and opined that they need strong characters in the dressing room. Faf du Plessis said:
“It takes two guys to get ahead and get a partnership that we couldn’t get. We need strong characters in the locker room to putRaise your hand”.