RCB Bold diaries: Faf du Plessis and Sanjay Bangar hail Anuj Rawat and Akash Deep’s performances

RCB ran out comfortable victors against the Mumbai Indians in a Super Saturday clash. The most pleasing aspect for the team will be the fact that two youngsters who made their debut for RCB just 4 games ago delivered match-winning performances.

How pleasing was it to see Akash Deep and Anuj Rawat at the forefront of a victory? “It’s really important at the start of a campaign that we looked at these two young guys and backed them, knowing that they’re gonna play a big part for us. And I think those fruits are coming through now,” said Captain Faf du Plessis.

Speaking about his opening batting partner Anuj Rawat, Skipper Faf added, “The initial part was just getting to understand who he is as a person, what he does, what kind of player he is, where does he score, where does he not like to score. And then help him out there in the middle to keep him calm with some good gameplans and I think that’s the best thing you can help a young guy with. They’ve got the talent, they’ve got the freedom to play all the shots, but it’s just putting it together with some really good structure. And he’s done that really well, we’ve been communicating nicely out in the middle, he’s got all the shots, I’m looking forward to seeing what he does for the rest of the season.” 

Head coach Sanjay Bangar also had a few words of praise for the 22-year old left-hander. “He’s been doing some fantastic stuff for the team. It wasn’t actually seen on the scorecard, because (in) the last 3 matches he’s combined with Faf and given us those two 50-run partnerships. He was doing that bit, he was always threatening to cross that 30-run barrier which he did today. And some of the shots were absolutely fantastic because being a guy who’s slightly short, he packs a punch and you could clearly see the number of sixes he can hit. So, very happy for him because he has put in a lot of hard work, and it really augurs well for us the way he and Faf have combined for us at the top. It means that more often than not we’re getting some good starts,” said Bangar.