Neither shifting base from Chennai to Bangalore nor taking up the leadership role seems to have stopped Faf du Plessis from doing what he knows best, scoring a bucketful of runs.
The South African batsman, who leads Royal Challengers Bangalore in this IPL season, converted a slow start into a cascade of sixes and fours to power RCB to an imposing 205-2 wickets against the Punjab Kings at the DY Patil Stadium yesterday.
At the time of going to press, Punjab Kings were 97-1 with Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Shikhar Dhawan batting on 21 and 34 respectively.
Opening the innings with Delhi youngster Anuj Rawat, Faf made 88 with the help of seven sixes and three fours, besides adding 50 with Rawat and then 118 runs in just 61 balls with RCB’s previous captain Virat Kohli, who remained unbeaten with a 29-ball 41.
After the departure of Du Plessis, out to a forward diving catch in the deep in the 18th over, RCB’s new recruit Dinesh Karthik came up with a 14-ball 32 studded with three sixes and as many fours as the southern outfit hammered home the earlier momentum to surge past the 200 mark.
Faf, the second highest scorer last season with 633 runs for Chennai Super Kings, was in his elements after scoring just 17 in a 10-over score of 70 for one. And with Kohli also doing his bit at the other end, RCB notched up 72 runs between the eleventh and fifteenth overs. Later RCB gathered 63 runs in the last five overs.
The two bowlers who bore the brunt of Faf’s acceleration in this phase were West Indian medium pacer Odean Smith who was hammered for 23 runs in the 13th over and left arm slow bowler Harpreet Brar who gave away 21 runs in the 14th over.
Faf finally departed when he was caught in the deep by a diving Shah Rukh Khan off Brar before Kohli, who played second fiddle in his stand with Faf, and Kartik took the score past the benchmark of 200.
For Punjab, leggie Rahul Chahar was the most impressive with 1-22 while Smith was smashed for 52 runs in his four overs.
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