I thought we fought back beautifully: Faf du Plessis after RCB’s defeat against LSG

After a promising 30 overs of cricket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, the Royal Challengers Bangalore couldn’t cross the finish line as they faltered on the last ball, missing out on a twin run-out opportunity against the Lucknow Super Giants to concede a 1-wicket loss.

Batting first, RCB posted 212 on the scorecard, riding high on knocks from Faf du Plessis (46-ball 79*), Virat Kohli (44-ball 61) and a quickfire half-century from Glenn Maxwell, who racked up 59 off just 29 balls. 

Mohammed Siraj and Wayne Parnell struck early in the game to leave LSG in trouble at 105/5 in 11.1 overs, but aggressive knocks from Marcus Stoinis (30-ball 65) and Nicholas Pooran (19-ball 62) left the RCB fans shell-shocked at the end of the game. The duo smashed the ball to all parts of the ground and turned the game on its head, with a very handy 30-run knock from impact substitute Ayush Badoni as well. 

RCB captain du Plessis opened up at length in the post-match conference and expressed his dejection at losing the game and said, “Disappointed. I mean obviously, they played really well through the middle there but I thought we fought back beautifully. But then that last ball, I fancied our chances with a run-out. I think just looking at that wicket, the batting from overs 7 to 14 was quite slow, but then in the last five overs the ball was coming on nicely and that carried on in the second innings.”

He further added, “I threw all the weapons we had at them. Unfortunately, they took on one of our stronger bowlers right away, Harshal in his first two overs, but he came back well. It's a difficult place to bowl at the death, you have to be at your best. I was actually struggling for most of my innings.”

He concluded by talking about his partnership with Kohli, adding, “Was just happy to give the strike to Virat who was striking it really well in the first six overs. You get those innings where sometimes you have to scratch through and once I started hitting a few I got my flow."