I Was Hungry For Runs, Wanted To Make An Impact: Faf du Plessis

Faf du Plessis scored 96 runs in 64 balls against Lucknow Super Giants.

Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis praised his teammates for extricating themselves from trouble once again and noted the good work by his bowlers in the 18-run win against Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2022 on Tuesday, adding that he is happy with his own performance which helped the team to recover from a tricky situation.

RCB were 42/3 in the sixth over after losing Anuj Rawat, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell cheaply before skipper du Plessis struck a superb 96 to help them post 181/6. In reply, Josh Hazlewood claimed 4/25 and helped RCB restrict Lucknow Super Giants to 163/8 in 20 overs and seal victory at the D.Y Patil Stadium here.

"Amazingly tonight we were in trouble, as we were in the last three or four games, but we have a knack of someone getting through it, stabilizing the innings, having composure and then towards the end we're a very dangerous team," said du Plessis after the match.

"Today, I'm grateful that I could do it. I was hungry for some runs. I wanted to make a big impact because the last few games had been quiet for me," he added.

The veteran felt that batting on this wicket was a bit difficult considering the big boundary.

"Because of the nature of the ground, it's quite big so you run a lot of twos. Towards the end it can get a little bit tiring but it's a good way to keep your fitness up," he added.

The South African said the maiden hundred in IPL that has been eluding him so far is around the corner. "My elusive IPL hundred... I feel it is around the corner.

"I went through my own processes and blueprint for scoring runs so I had a clear mental image going into this match and was glad that it paid off. [I was tiring] but I was still in a mode where I felt I could still hit the ball."

He said it was difficult to score boundaries on this ground. "If you bowled slow into the wicket to the big boundary, the ball stopped quite a bit so you never felt like you had enough power to clear the boundary. I think it was evident from everyone that big boundary if you bowled well it was difficult to score boundaries," he added.

The RCB skipper gave credit to his bowlers for pulling off a good win.

"There was quite a bit happening in those first three or four overs. They got us in trouble and somehow we found a way and just stuck right through the innings. But the bowlers are really on the top of their game," he said.