Faf du Plessis stands tall for RCB as Kohli fails yet again

After nudging Afghanistan’s IPL debutant left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi for a single to wide long-on in the second ball of the 19^th over for his 73^rd run, Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis was happy to give Dinesh Karthik the strike for the rest of the over. He tolerated his sweaty helmet for almost the entire innings that just before the last delivery was bowled, he summoned his reserve player to take away his headgear.

It is crucial in the team’s interests that one of the openers bat the entire duration of the innings in a T20 match. Du Plessis has often batted the entire 20 overs and held the innings together. He has done it for Chennai Super Kings until last year. On Sunday at the Wankhede Stadium, Du Plessis anchored the RCB innings brilliantly while his partners went about hitting the loose deliveries, and also put away some good deliveries, for boundaries.

The 37-year-old South African batsman played a captain’s knock, remaining unbeaten on 73 from 50 deliveries with eight fours and two sixes – a short ball from right-arm pacer Karthik Tyagi pulled over square leg and another similar stroke off Umran Malik – throwing away loose deliveries to the boundary while he was happy to give strike to his partners and egging them on to go on the offensive mode.

Having seen Virat Kohli fall to a tame dismissal off the first ball of the match, Du Plessis settled down in the company of the impressive batsman from Madhya Pradesh, Rajat Patidar, to see off the first two overs before unleashing his shots. A step out and hit over mid-on off left-arm spinner Jagadeesha Suchith, who consumed Kohli off the first delivery, set the ball rolling for the RCB captain. The faster Tyagi and Malik bowled, the faster the ball raced off Du Plessis’s bat.