Mumbai : Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Tuesday defeated Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) by 18 runs in Match 31 of IPL 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. Chasing a target of 182, LSG were restricted to a total of 163/8 as Josh Hazlewood took four for 25. Krunal Pandya (42) and KL Rahul (30) put one a decent fight with the bat LSG kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Earlier, Faf du Plessis slammed a brilliant 96 as RCB recovered from a top-order collapse to post 181 for six against LSG. RCB were earlier reeling at 62/4 before Du Plessis and Shahbaz Ahmed (26) added 70 runs for the fifth wicket. Initially, LSG won the toss and elected to bowl.
Faf du Plessis, RCB skipper, Player of the Match, said, ‘ Due to the nature of this ground, you do run a lot of 2s and towards the end, it can be tiring. I got a few 96, and a 97, so hopefully (a ton) is around the corner. We needed someone to stabilise the innings and then get going at the back end. Today, grateful that I could do it. Important that I am able to follow my blueprint of batting. If you bowled slow into the wicket to the big boundary, it never felt like you had enough power to clear that boundary. I was tired, but was still hoping that I could hit some at the end. Early in the innings, there was help for the bowlers and they did get us in trouble but we found a way.
Our bowlers then stuck to the plans and when you do that on a ground like this, it’s tough for the batters. At the moment, lot of teams at the top, and many in the middle, and when that happens, it’s always a scramble (for playoff spots). But that’s out of our control. We need to just working on our strengths and we actually can get better in a few things. Need one guy to bat through consistently, but we haven’t had that frequently. DK has saved us quite a bit, hopefully today is a stepping stone in that direction. Before the last two games, it (death bowling) was a concern as we were getting hit in areas we shouldn’t have been. But in the last two games, we’ve got hit to where we’ve wanted to. Harshal has been exceptional, watch out for him, he’s going to be special for the rest of the season too.’
KL Rahul, LSG skipper, said, ‘I think we started really well, after getting 2 wickets in the first over and then give away 50 in the powerplay, we could have done better. 180 on that pitch was 15-20 extra runs we gave away, we couldn’t really squeeze in the middle and with the bat as well we needed one in the top three to go deep and the other batters to bat around him and unfortunately we couldn’t do that. We have a really good team, very happy with how we are playing, yes a couple of games we could have done better. I think we started well against Rajasthan and here as well we put them under pressure but we couldn’t sustain for much longer. Everyone has chipped in and everyone looks in good form and everyone scored for us. Important that one or two guys who have a good day they need to dig in and take the team through.’
Josh Hazlewood, said, ‘ It was good fun. The challenge at the end when the batters are coming hard. Obviously we had the big side to try and use and I thought we used it pretty well. He is the skip he got us the big score. Faf has been brilliant. Few lean games, but he took his time today and kept the scoring going along and finished with a bang. Credit to him. Just turned and tried to get back to my mark as quickly as I could, got pretty lucky on that one (smiles). I am really enjoying the bounce. Wankhede has got nice bounce but here at the DY the bounce is unreal with the new ball. If you get it right you can create opportunities in those first few overs. We have got a well rounded bowling attack and we cover all bases.’