After Royal Challengers Bengaluru ended their six-game losing streak by defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday, Faf du Plessis sounded confident . “In our last two matches, we showed great determination,” he said at the post-match ceremony.
“Earlier against SRH we scored 260 while chasing 270 plus, and then we lost by just 1 run against KKR. We’ve been close to winning for a while now, but you need match victories to boost the team’s confidence. I’ll sleep sound tonight. You can’t just talk confidence into the group or fake it. Performances are the only thing that truly builds confidence,” he added.
Even though Virat Kohli has been the leading scorer, Du Plessis is pleased that other batters are also regaining their form and contributing with the bat.
“The competition is fierce, with strong teams that will capitalize on any weakness. To succeed, you must be at the top of your game. Earlier in the tournament, Virat was the only one consistently scoring runs. Greeny started racking up runs now, it would be a huge boost for him” he added.
Chasing 207 runs, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s overly aggressive batting strategy backfired. They collapsed to 69-5 by the 8th over and could not recover after that early setbacks.
Pat Cummins reflected on their loss saying,
“We had a tough outing. Our batting was below average and we lost wickets at multiple points during our innings. We had decided to bat first, which had been working well in our recent victories. Previously, we thought we thought we would opt bowling first.”
“Our aggressive approach with the bat has served us well so far. T20 cricket is unpredictable – you won’t win every game. Though we’ve had a couple matches recently where we struggled early on, the boys still managed good totals overall.” he continued
“The bold aggressive style plays to our strengths. One or two losses don’t mean we need to change course. We just need to learn from them and keep moving forward confidently.” added the SRH skipper.