You don't feel that you have time to settle down – Faf du Plessis on this year’s IPL

It was a day of hits and misses for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru as they were pipped by Kolkata Knight Riders in the latter’s den after a solid display with the bat. Faf du Plessis had a bit of an unsettling start after the chaos involving Virat Kohli and his dismissal. Trying to accelerate later, he was removed after Venkatesh Iyer claimed an absolute stunner diving all the way from mid-on.

Despite an off-day with the bat, Faf du Plessis was electric on the field as he claimed a sensational grab at long-off to remove his counterpart, Shreyas Iyer, for a well-orchestrated half-century. Talking at the post-match presentation, Faf explained in detail the exact mind frame of the players and what the game actually meant to RCB.

Shedding some light on Kohli’s dismissal, Faf said, “It was crazy, rules are rules, Virat and myself thought that the ball was higher than the waist, I guess they measured from the popping crease, one team thinks it's high, the other doesn't. That's how the game goes at times.”

He then heaped praises on the crucial partnership between Will Jacks and Rajat Patidar partnership, stating, “Then the partnership, it was magnificent, but when you don't win too many games, some sort of panic sets in and the Narine over was game-changing.”

He also talked about the IPL this season, explaining, “You don't feel that you have time to settle down and bat, the game doesn't allow it to do that, obviously you have an extra batter, but in chases like these, you have to keep going.”

Faf was happy about the team’s performance adding, “The match-up against Narine, I thought that was the game changing over. The small things, I am actually proud of the boys tonight, the way we bowled and fielded, we did give away a couple of big overs towards the end, but I thought we kept them down to a par score. We thought we'll go hard in the batting powerplay, find those boundaries at the start of the innings.”

He concluded by saying, “We were desperate, 10/10 from an effort perspective, the way we put up the effort in the ground, the faces told the story. We've got an unbelievable fanbase, we want to make them happy, we want them to have a smile on their face. We'll have to continue putting in our efforts and try to change things around.”