Faf du Plessis-led Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) won against Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the 41st match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) on Thursday, April 25 at the Stadium Rajiv Gandhi International. , Uppal, Hyderabad.
By winning the toss and batting first in the match, Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis gave RCB a good start. Du Plessis did not achieve great results, but Kohli managed to reach the half-century, albeit very slowly. Rajat Patidar was the best player for RCB as he scored a sensational 19-ball half-century to help his team post a total of 206/7.
Defending the total, RCB bowlers were right on the money from the first over as they dismissed the dangerous Travis Head early. RCB picked 4 more wickets in the powerplay and dismissed all the big boys. Then, SRH’s middle and lower order batsmen tried to fight back but it was not enough to take the win. In the end, RCB restricted SRH to 171/8 to win the match by 35 runs.
At the post-match presentation ceremony, Faf du Plessis stated that in recent matches they have put in good performances, but ended up losing, which caused little confidence in the dressing room. Faf du elaborated:
“In the last two matches we have shown great signs of fight. The SRH match was 270 over, we got 260. The KKR match too – 1 run. We have been close for a while, but you need to win matches to gain confidence. “As a group, I will sleep better tonight. You can’t talk about confidence in the group, you can’t fake confidence in the group. The only thing that gives confidence is the performances.”
Faf du Plessis noted that Virat Kohli has been receiving much-needed support from the other batsmen in the team after doing the heavy lifting in the first half of IPL 2024. Faf du Plessis further termed RCB’s home ground Chinnaswamy as a great frustration for because it is a graveyard of bowlers. Faf du Plessis elaborated:
“The competition is so strong, the teams are so strong that you will get hurt if you are not 100 per cent. Now there are more guys scoring runs. In the first half of the tournament only Virat scored runs. Now Greeny scoring runs will be huge for him. “We know Chinnaswamy has been a big frustration for us. It’s a difficult pitch to play on. We’ve tried to find a recipe for it, but it’s difficult.”
Previous RCB vs SRH IPL 2024 match was a run fest
In their first match of the Indian Premier League 2024, the batsmen of both the teams made the most of the bid conditions at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru and annihilated the bowlers to produce the highest IPL total and the total highest match tally in all T20s with a total of 549 runs.
Batting first, SRH posted 287/3 thanks to Travis Head’s remarkable century and Heinrich Klaasen’s brilliant half-century with Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad and Aiden Markram contributing significant runs. Only two RCB bowlers were among the wickets – Lockie Ferguson picked 2 and Reece Topley bagged one wicket on 15 April.
RCB then finished their innings on 262 for 7, thanks to the batting masterclass of Dinesh Karthik and Faf du Plessis. Virat Kohli, Mahipal Lomror and Anuj Rawat also tried their best but RCB eventually lost the match by 25 runs.