Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain Faf du Plessis has equaled a big record of RCB legend AB de Villiers with his half-century against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) on Sunday in Jaipur, where RCB recorded a massive 112 runs victory over Sanju Samson’s side.
Half-centuries from du Plessis (55 off 44) and Glenn Maxwell (54 off 33), followed by sensational pace bowling show from Mohammed Siraj and Wayne Parnell led to RCB winning by such a huge margin.
Chasing the target of 172 runs, RR got bowled out for only 59 – the third-lowest total in the IPL history.
This was du Plessis’ 7th 50+ of the ongoing IPL 2023 season, equalling 7 50+ knocks from AB de Villiers from the 2016 season.
With this feat, the RCB skipper became the 4th RCB batter to record 7 or more 50 plus scores in an IPL season. Virat Kohli is at the top of the tally with 11 50-plus scores in his epic 2016 season, followed by Chris Gayle with 8 in 2012 and AB de Villiers with 7 in 2016.
Faf du Plessis is the Orange Cap holder with 631 runs in 12 innings.
Most 50+ scores for an RCB batsman in the IPL:
Virat Kohli – 11 in 2016
Chris Gayle – 8 in 2012
AB de Villiers – 7 in 2016
Faf du Plessis* – 7 in 2023
Speaking at the post-match presentation, RCB captain Faf du Plessis said: “Really good for our NRR. Tough pitch. We batted first and assessed the conditions. We batted in the powerplay and thought 160 will be a good score. We have had a good set up till the 15th over. But we managed to capitalize on the momentum shift at the end.
Great job [by bowlers]. Bracewell would want to bowl on this every day of the week. We needed a left-arm spinner. May be Shahbaz could have been an option. Wrist spin could have been an attacking option. Hopefully, we can set it up for the last game at the Chinnaswamy. Today was a good one for the team. They needed this confidence to go into the last two games.”
Wayne Parnell was named as the Player of the Match for taking wickets of Buttler, Samson, and Root in the powerplay.
