IPL 2023: His innings ensured we had that 20-30 extra at the end – Virat Kohli on Faf du Plessis’ knock after win against PBKS

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s stand-in captain Virat Kohli gave credit to Faf du Plessis after they defeated Punjab Kings by 24 runs at the IS Bindra Stadium, Mohali on Thursday. Kohli and Faf – who was playing only as a batter due to rib injury – gave a perfect start to RCB as the experienced pair added 137 runs for the opening alliance in 16 overs.

While Kohli struggled with his timing to score 59 runs from 47 balls, du Plessis looked at home during his knock of 84 runs. The South African scored five fours and as many sixes in his blistering knock as he scored his runs at a strike rate of 150.

Faf has been in amazing form in the ongoing season of the IPL as he has amassed 343 runs in six matches and he is currently the leading run-getter of the tournament.

RCB posted 174 runs on the board after fifties from Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis and the former knew it was a par score on a pitch, which wasn’t easiest to bat on.

On the other hand, Mohammed Siraj bowled a superb spell as he returned with figures of 4-21 in his quota of four overs to help RCB skittle out PBKS for 150 runs.

Virat Kohli said in the post-match presentation, “The table can’t define your team. It’s towards game 13 or 14 we can try and focus on what we need to do. Faf batted really well on that pitch. His innings ensured we had that 20-30 extra at the end. The pitch was very rough underneath, there was not enough water there I guess. There were hardly any sixes hit off the back foot against the spinners.”

He continued, “The strategy was to bat deep to have a crack at 190. Told them (the bowlers) that the target was more than enough. Cannot afford to take the game deep, especially when they lost 6-7 wickets. The batting lineups are deeper, but we also have options in our bowling. At the halfway stage, the talk was to take the game to the opposition and you kind of break the game open when you pick up 4 wickets in the powerplay.”

RCB will host Rajasthan Royals on Sunday at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.