NEW DELHI: With a ten-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab in their previous league game on Monday, Royal Challengers Bangalore have managed to keep themselves alive in the race for the IPL 2018 play-offs, and even though they only have an outside chance to qualify, their star player AB de Villiers is confident that his team will not go down quietly.
Writing in his column for TOI, de Villiers described the match against KXIP as the perfect one. RCB had bundled out the Ravichandran Ashwin-led side for just 88 runs in 15.1 overs.
“Well, that’s one way to meet the challenge of containing the opposing batsmen in the last five overs of their innings: bowl them out in 15 overs!,” wrote de Villiers. “That’s precisely what happened in our ‘perfect match’ against KXIP in Indore, and the win keeps our dream of progressing to the playoffs alive. There have been days during the past few weeks when it felt as if absolutely nothing would go right for us; in contrast, this was a day when it felt as if nothing would go wrong.”
The Virat Kohli-led franchise is currently placed seventh in the points tally, but tied with Mumbai Indians with 10 points. RCB will have to win both their remaining two league games (vs SRH and RR) and hope other match results go in their favour for a top-four finish.
“We knew we had to win each of our last four league matches,” said de Villiers. “There is still plenty of work to be done, at home against Sunrisers Hyderabad and away against Rajasthan Royals, and we still have no room for error, but you never know. Two down and two to go, we are fighting.”
RCB’s bowlers have come under the scanner as they have failed to defend big totals on quite a few occasions, but de Villiers wrote in their support saying that they are coming up with good performances when it matters the most.
“Our bowlers have received some unfair criticism during this tournament, but they found their lines and lengths when it mattered. Umesh Yadav set the tone, using raw pace to blast through the KXIP top order, and our fielding maintained the pressure. With three runouts, the home side were dismissed for 88 in 15.1 over, ” wrote the 34-year-old, who has so far scored 358 runs at an average of 51.14 from ten matches.
The South African went on to add that the team has a strong mindset and they will continue to fight. “RCB are not going quietly. Our collective mindset is strong. After playing in Delhi, we faced a long day of travelling on Monday, featuring huge storms. Nobody complained, nobody moaned.”