RCB’s skipper, Faf du Plessis, has raised concern about the pitch in Bangalore. Virat Kohli scored a prolific 83, scoring 45 percent of the team’s total. However, in spite of that, he was under the scrutiny of his supporters.
Faf du Plessis found the wicket to be two-paced, which made it hard for the batters to score runs on slower deliveries in the first inning.
In his post-match presentation, Faf du Plessis said, “Strange one: first innings, we thought that the wicket was two-paced; you could see that when the guys bowled the cutters, the guys really struggled. We thought it was a decent score knowing that it gets a little easier in the evening and there was a little bit of dew coming in. Looking at the way we batted in the first inning, even Virat was struggling to hit the ball due to the lack of pace. You can always say, after the game, try one or two things, but the way the two of them (Narine and Slat) batted, they put pressure on our bowlers. They hit strong cricket shots and pretty much took the game away.”
Faf du Plessis further added, “With Narine there, you can’t go to spin; you want to use pace upfront. That’s also a really good match-up for Salt and the way he plays. They were excellent and really broke the game in the first six overs. Spinning options with Maxi and finger-spinning can be effective here, but at night there wasn’t too much spin. With a left-hand, right-hand combination, it’s one of those things that you can bowl a spinner. We saw that when Venky was playing, it felt like an easy hit against a left-arm spin.
Faf du Plessis also feels that the players should be able to quickly adapt to the condition to find success here for future encounters.
Faf further added, “Ideally, you want someone who can spin the ball both ways, but with the set-up of our team tonight, we didn’t have that option. (On Vyshak) Very good; he hasn’t had opportunities. We had a look in the first inning and thought about bringing in Karn Sharma. But we felt someone who could bowl really good slower balls was probably the most difficult bowler to face on this pitch. Dre Russ bowled 80% of his balls. We took some lessons from that, and he was the best bowler of the evening.”
