Gujarat Titans batters Shubman Gill greet Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis after successful the IPL 2023 cricket match in opposition to RCB at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on May 21, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Faf du Plessis made a important evaluation of his facet’s efficiency in the IPL this season, saying it “wasn’t one of the best teams in the competition” and “didn’t deserve to be in semifinal”.
RCB’s marketing campaign in the IPL ended prematurely but once more with Shubman Gill’s blazing century serving to Gujarat Titans to a six-wicket victory in Bengaluru on Sunday.
RCB have by no means received an IPL trophy and it will have rankled Faf all the extra as, regardless of main the run-getters’ chart, his efforts went in useless.
“I am so disappointed that our season ends there. If we take a hard look at ourselves, we’ll be honest in saying that we weren’t one of the best teams in the competition,” mentioned Faf, who took over as RCB captain this season.
“We were lucky that there were some really good performances throughout the season but, as a whole (and) as a team, we probably don’t deserve to be in the semifinal, if you look at the period of 15-14 games,” mentioned the South African in a post-match video posted by RCB on Monday.
A win for RCB would have denied Mumbai Indians a spot in the playoffs however GT, thanks to Gill’s heroics, chased down a aggressive 198 set by the residence workforce with 5 balls to spare.
“It (defeat) still hurts. I mean, we tried really hard tonight (Sunday) and unfortunately just fell short. Looking at some real positives in the form of Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) this year, the partnerships we had between myself and Virat (Kohli)… a 50-run partnership in probably every game, the consistency was remarkable.
“(Pacer Mohammed) Siraj had a fantastic marketing campaign, so some actually, actually excessive positives and a few areas in the sport the place we have been constantly not nice, I believe,” added Faf.
RCB head coach Sanjay Bangar said the team’s early exit despite some outstanding performances from Kohli, Faf and Siraj was difficult to comprehend.
“It is indeed very disappointing because there were some outstanding performances. We had to finish a couple of close games but couldn’t. We found ourselves in a very tight corner towards the end but (it) doesn’t take away anything from the guys who preformed.”
Kohli ended up with two centuries and six half-centuries, while Faf scored eight half-tons, though the poor performance of the middle order ultimately cost them the season.
However, Bangar said that he was happy the team played some “attractive” cricket throughout the tournament.
“The performances put (up) by the workforce… we have been actually a combating unit, a really engaging unit all through the match, simply that very disenchanted that we couldn’t progress in the match,” he added.
