Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Faf du Plessis has admitted the lack of weapons and penetration in the bowling unit as the reason for his team’s struggle in the IPL 2024. RCB were handed a drubbing by Mumbai Indians in the 25th match of the tournament despite scoring 196. MI chased down the target with ease in 15.3 overs to hand the Faf du Plessis-led side their fifth loss of the season.
The RCB skipper has admitted the lack in the bowling unit is costing them dearly. “At the moment, it feels like, from a batting perspective we have to get and try and push for 220 to have a chance. From a bowling perspective, we don’t have as many weapons. So unfortunately it comes down to the batters to make sure that we use our form and our confidence. The scores that we put on the board are probably going to be the only way we are going to get into the competition,” the RCB skipper said after the match.
RCB probably lost the contest in the powerplay itself when Ishan Kishan went berserk. He smashed 55 from 25 balls and raced the hosts to 72 with Rohit Sharma contributing 15 from 11 in the powerplay. When RCB got Ishan for 69 in the 9th over with the score reading 101, the match was almost over.
Faf said that the bowling unit lacks penetration to strike early. “From a bowling perspective, we have lacked a little bit of penetration (at the start) so we have to go out and find creative ways within our squad we can get a team two or three-down in the powerplay. Just so that you feel like your bowling innings can start on the front foot. It feels, for the last few games, that we are on the back foot after the first few overs,” he added.
He asserted that dew came in during the run-chase which made it easier for the batters but credited the MI batters were superior. “You also have to give credit in the way that the boys from MI came out and played. Put a lot of pressure on our bowlers. Made our bowlers make a lot of mistakes in the powerplay especially,” he said.
“You could see that anyone who came in could find the middle of the bat quite easily. We did know that and spoke about it in the first innings. The dew here looked like it was going to be big so we felt we needed to get 215, maybe even 220. Obviously, 190 [196] or whatever we got wasn’t enough runs.
“It (dew) is a big thing in some venues as we know. When the dew settles in, it is really tough. You could see the boys were bowling a few full tosses. We changed the ball a few times. It was really, really wet. But that’s just the game of cricket. It is probably the only sport where the conditions have such a big impact,” he added.
He also said that they needed to build scoreboard pressure in the first innings for the opposition team but lost momentum after losing wickets at crucial moments.