"Didn't Deserve To Be In" IPL 2023 Playoffs: RCB Captain Faf du Plessis' Admission

Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Faf du Plessis made a critical assessment of his side's performance in the IPL this season, saying it "wasn't one of the best teams in the competition" and "didn't deserve to be in semifinal". RCB's campaign in the IPL ended prematurely yet again with Shubman Gill's blazing century helping Gujarat Titans to a six-wicket victory in Bengaluru on Sunday. RCB have never won an IPL trophy and it would have rankled Faf all the more as, despite leading the run-getters' chart, his efforts went in vain.

"I am so disappointed that our season ends there. If we take a hard look at ourselves, we'll be honest in saying that we weren't one of the best teams in the competition," said Faf, who took over as RCB captain this season.

"We were lucky that there were some really good performances throughout the season but, as a whole (and) as a team, we probably don't deserve to be in the semifinal, if you look at the period of 15-14 games," said the South African in a post-match video posted by RCB on Monday.

A win for RCB would have denied Mumbai Indians a spot in the playoffs but GT, thanks to Gill's heroics, chased down a competitive 198 set by the home team with five balls to spare.

"It (defeat) still hurts. I mean, we tried really hard tonight (Sunday) and unfortunately just fell short. Looking at some real positives in the form of Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) this year, the partnerships we had between myself and Virat (Kohli)... a 50-run partnership in probably every game, the consistency was remarkable.

"(Pacer Mohammed) Siraj had a great campaign, so some really, really high positives and some areas in the game where we were consistently not great, I think," added Faf.

RCB head coach Sanjay Bangar said the