IPL: RCB beats LSG by 18 runs

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Tuesday defeated Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) by 18 runs in Match 31 of IPL 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. Chasing a target of 182, LSG were restricted to a total of 163/8 as Josh Hazlewood took four for 25.

Krunal Pandya (42) and KL Rahul (30) put one a decent fight with the bat LSG kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Earlier, Faf du Plessis slammed a brilliant 96 as RCB recovered from a top-order collapse to post 181 for six against LSG. RCB were earlier reeling at 62/4 before Du Plessis and Shahbaz Ahmed (26) added 70 runs for the fifth wicket. Initially, LSG won the toss and elected to bowl.

Faf du Plessis, RCB skipper, Player of the Match, said, ‘ Due to the nature of this ground, you do run a lot of 2s and towards the end, it can be tiring. I got a few 96, and a 97, so hopefully (a ton) is around the corner. We needed someone to stabilise the innings and then get going at the back end. Today, grateful that I could do it.

Important that I am able to follow my blueprint of batting. If you bowled slow into the wicket to the big boundary, it never felt like you had enough power to clear that boundary. I was tired, but was still hoping that I could hit some at the end. Early in the innings, there was help for the bowlers and they did get us in trouble but we found a way.

Our bowlers then stuck to the plans and when you do that on a ground like this, it’s tough for the batters. At the moment, lot of teams at the top, and many in the middle, and when that happens, it’s always a scramble (for playoff spots). But that’s out of our control.

We need to just working on our strengths and we actually can get better in a few things. Need one guy to bat through consistently, but we haven’t had that frequently. DK has saved us quite a bit, hopefully today is a stepping stone in that direction. Before the last two games, it (death bowling) was a concern as we were getting hit in areas we shouldn’t have been.

But in the last two games, we’ve got hit to where we’ve wanted to. Harshal has been exceptional, watch out for him, he’s going to be special for the rest of the season too.’

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