AB de Villiers issues an official statement after RCB qualify for IPL 2024 playoffs

Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter AB de Villiers congratulated his former franchise for making it to the play-offs of IPL 2024 last night.

RCB defeated the reigning champions Chennai Super Kings in front of home supporters at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium to seal their spot. Last night's South Indian derby was perhaps one of the best derbies ever in Indian Premier League history. What was even better was the way Bengaluru did everything they could to finish in the top 4 of the table.

It was one of the best things that RCB fans could have experienced in their lifetime as their favorite qualified from the barest of margins. Their dream to finally lift the coveted title seems to be getting closer. A double of trophies for the franchise in 2024 is looking very much possible but first, they will have to cross two hurdles - the Eliminator against either SRH and RR and then the Qualifier 2.

AB de Villiers sends special message to RCB

AB de Villiers, who himself has reached the IPL finale twice with the franchise, first congratulated RCB for their sensational outing against CSK. The South African, as we all know, is a legend in the Bengaluru team and has a special bond with the team's former captain Virat Kohli as well as the massive fanbase.

So it was quite obvious for AB de Villiers to send a message to his RCB family. He took to X (formerly Twitter) and asked all the teams in IPL to never count the team out, indicating that they are always in the hunt and always in the lookout to win. de Villiers also highlighted the turnaround Bengaluru had in their season and lastly affirmed them to go and get the Premier League title.

"Never count #RCB out. What a turnaround! What a performance! Let’s go get that title now." - de Villiers wrote on X.

All the RCB players stood up when it mattered the most

Every RCB player knew what they had to do to reach the IPL 2024 play-offs and therefore everyone played according to it. They didn't let their intensity go down even for a second as even the highly questioned middle-order batting line-up stood up for the occasion.

In the 1st innings, Virat Kohli (47) and Faf du Plessis (54) had a crucial partnership of 78, Rajat Patidar smashed 41 off 23, and Cameron Green contributed 38 off 17. Dinesh Karthik and Glenn Maxwell also shared 30 runs between them off just 11 balls at strike rates of over 230.

The bowling department then got to the job quickly, removing CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad for a golden duck. Rachin Ravindra had put up a good fight with his 61 off 37 before getting run out in an unfortunate circumstance, Ajinkya Rahane got out for 33 off 22.

Shivam Dube, Daryl Mitchell, and Mitchell Santner all flopped. Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni tried their best but CSK were eventually restricted to 191/7. Bengaluru will now await the team that finishes 3rd and it could be either of Rajasthan or Hyderabad whom they will face in the 1st Eliminator.