du Plessis lavishes praise on Dayal for RCB’s win

BENGALURU: Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Faf du Plessis on Saturday dedicated his player-of-the-match award to pacer Yash Dayal, who kept his cool in the final over to seal a 27-run win over Chennai Super Kings in the battle for the final IPL play-off spot.

Du Plessis was adjudged the player-of-the-match for his 54 off 39 balls which along with Virat Kohli’s 47 set the foundation as RCB posted a solid 218 for five on Saturday night.

CSK needed to score 200 plus to qualify and it came agonisingly close to sealing the berth with Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja going hammers and tongs towards the end.

“I dedicate the Man of the Match (award) to Yash Dayal! I said to him pace off on this wicket is the best option,” Du Plessis said during the post-match presentation ceremony.

“What a night! Such a great atmosphere. Just a pleasure to finish the season in front of the home fans. There was a lot of rain falling on the pitch, and you don’t want that moisture. It felt like a day-five Test match in Ranchi!”

Rain threat was looming on the match and there was a 40-minute rain interruption too but it didn’t matter in the end.

“The contributions from many batters at good strikes, I’m really proud. We were defending 175 (and neither 201 nor 218)! We tried to get the ball changed.

“It’s crazy; even when we weren’t winning, we had the fans here. It was set up perfectly - CSK vs RCB! Incredible.” CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad said missing out on key players made a huge difference as it finished fifth.

“I think it was a good wicket, it was spinning and gripping a little bit, but I think 200 on this ground was gettable. We kept losing wickets at regular intervals, it was a matter of one or two hits, sometimes that can happen in a T20 game,” he said.