TATA IPL 2024: Du Plessis Laments on Confidence Crisis After 5th Straight Loss

By siliconindia  |  Tuesday, 16 April 2024, 05:02:13 PM IST

TATA IPL 2024: Du Plessis Laments on Confidence Crisis After 5th Straight Loss
Following their fifth consecutive defeat in the IPL 2024 season, Faf du Plessis, captain of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), conceded that the team's morale had been significantly affected by the series of losses, stating, "Cricket is tough when the team's confidence is low".
In their seventh game of the season, RCB faced their sixth defeat, falling to SRH, who achieved a new IPL record with a total of 287/3, surpassing their previous record of 277 against the Mumbai Indians (MI) earlier in the season. RCB took the field without a dedicated spinner, and with Mohammad Siraj sidelined, their bowling attack appeared inexperienced. They opted for the off-spin of Will Jacks, who conceded 32 runs in his three overs. The pace quartet of Reece Topley, Yash Dayal, Lockie Ferguson, and Vijaykumar Vyshak collectively leaked 137 runs in their ten overs.
"Credit to us for hanging in there and trying to get closer towards the end. We tried a few things behind closed doors. It's a sign of confidence in the group and in the bowling department. The game of cricket is tough when your confidence is down; there is nowhere to hide in the game. When you are not on top of your game it is difficult and you got nowhere to hide. "Obviously, with five bowlers even tough on a wicket like that. I think we will have to keep trying different things, maybe bring in a bit of leg spin to try and get some wickets in the middle over", Du Plessis told broadcasters after the match.
Despite the loss, du Plessis was pleased with the efforts of the batting unit and said, "Similarly from the batting perspective, we need to work on a few areas. There were some errors we need to address as a batting unit. We have gone pretty well in the powerplay but there has been a bit of a drop after the powerplay and that's something we want to get better as a batting unit, make sure the rate doesn't go down and keep going up because that's just the way the game has evolved with the scores the teams putting up".
"From that aspect really proud to see the boys put up their hands tonight with the bat and never gave up. You see often in today's cricket where one team has a big score like that, a lot of times the team will fall away like a deck of cards. So, it was good to see there was a bit of fight in us but at the end, just about 30-40 runs from a bowling perspective was too much", the skipper added.
Du Plessis also highlighted the importance of the entire team taking a break from the game to rejuvenate their minds. "You need to go away and freshen your mind. This is such a mental game, sometimes when we have back-to-back defeats like these it does feel like your mind is going to explode. So important to get away from it and make sure when you do get back to your next challenge, you show full commitment, 100% fight, you can't be floating around 70% the way the game is being played at the moment", he concluded.
Source: IANS

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