Faf du Plessis
Faf du Plessis. (Photo: IPL)

Chennai Super Kings beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 23 runs to register their first win in the 15th edition of the IPL. Faf du Plessis, RCB’s captain admitted after the game that they missed Harshal Patel dearly.

Harshal Patel had left the bio bubble due to the demise of his sister.

Ravindra JAdeja and Faf du Plessis. PHoto- BCCI
Ravindra JAdeja and Faf du Plessis. PHoto- BCCI

CSK Scored The Highest Total in The Tournament

In Harshal’s absence, most of RCB’s bowling looked clueless as in spite of a great start they let CSK run away with the game after the powerplay in the first innings.

Josh Hazelwood made his debut for RCB and gave them a good start by trapping Ruturaj Gaikwad in front of the wicket but after that, it was all CSK.

Shivam Dube and Robin Uthappa had a brilliant partnership of 165 runs in the middle.

“First of all our 7-8 overs were good. Then 8-14 we tried to bring the spinners on and they played really well. Dube taking on the spinners took the momentum they carried from 8-14. That partnership speaks for itself,” Faf said about the partnership after the game.

On being asked how badly they missed Harshal Patel Faf said, “Just shows you when you play a match like tonight. You see the value he (Harshal) offers not just to this team but to any team. He has got the ability to really stop the game. We missed that tonight. Even towards the end, we lacked variety. Big miss for us, hopefully, we will have him back soon again.”

CSK vs RCB: We Missed Harshal Patel In The Match - Faf du Plessis

None of the RCB bowlers was able to contain Dube or Uthappa as all of them went for more than 8 runs per over. Akashdeep was the most expensive bowler as he gave away 58 runs from his 4 overs.

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RCB in the end managed to reach close to the target and Faf was happy about that.

“Even though we lost we were only 20 runs short on a total we should have been blown out of order and that is impressive”, Faf concluded.

RCB would hope to put this game behind and hope to get back to winning ways when they play next.

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