Faf du Plessis-led Royal Challengers Bangalore have continued their march towards a playoff spot in IPL 2022 with a big win over Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday. The Bangalore-based outfit thrashed their Hyderabad counterpart by 67 runs at the Wankhede Stadium. RCB now have seven wins from 12 games. This was also their second win on the trot. Before that, they had lost three games in a row and another defeat would have pretty much derailed their campaign.
Faf du Plessis won the toss and decided to bat first. The skipper led from the very front and scored an unbeaten 73 off 50 balls. Apart from him, veteran wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik also made a mark with the bat. The right-handed batsman continued his fine form this season and scored an unbeaten 30 off just 8 balls. Karthik’s cameo and du Plessis’s knock helped RCB recover from a poor start and post a big total of 192 for 3.
RCB bowlers then joined the party and fired their team to a big win. Leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga was the star of the show, taking a sensational five-wicket haul to help RCB bowl out SRH for a paltry 125. Rahul Tripathi (58) and Aiden Markram (21) were the only batsmen from the SRH camp to cross the 20-run mark. As many as seven SRH batters failed to touch even the double-digit mark with the bat while four of them could not even open their account.
I was so tired to get DK in: Faf du Plessis
Following the convincing win over SRH, Faf du Plessis has revealed that he wanted to sacrifice his own wicket to ensure Dinesh Karthik’s presence on the batting crease. In fact, du Plessis was so confident of Karthik’s form that he even thought of retiring himself just so that the wicketkeeper-batsman could walk in and start hitting the sixes. He, however, did not need to retire himself out as RCB lost a wicket from another end and Karthik came out to bat.
“If he (Dinesh Karthik) is hitting sixes like that, we want to get him in and bat as long as possible. He’s just so clear. To be honest, I was actually trying to get out because I was so tired, to get DK in. We were even contemplating – myself ‘retiring out’. And then, we lost that wicket,” du Plessis said after the match.
“DK is in such good form. It was a tricky wicket. A lot of guys, their first few balls, they struggled. Lucky for us, there was a dropped catch of DK and he just took them apart,” he added.
Karthik has been in sensational form in IPL 2022 and has impressed one and all with his finishing abilities. The right-handed batsman has scored 274 runs at a stunning average of 68.50 and an outstanding strike rate of 200. Karthik is now widely backed to make it to India’s squad for this year’s T20 World Cup. Karthik has not played for India since 2019 but his current form has pretty much put him in a position where he can dream of donning the blue jersey once again.