"Last Year Dinesh Karthik Had...": Faf du Plessis Puts RCB's Middle-order In Line Of Fire

Following the loss to Gujarat Titans (GT), Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Faf Du Plessis said that lack of runs from the middle order, wickets in middle overs, inability to finish the games well and the lack of good hitters down the order contributed to team's league stage exit. Shubman Gill's century outshined Virat Kohli's classic knock of 101 runs to help GT beat RCB by 6 wickets in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match here at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday.

"Very disappointed. We played a really strong team tonight, an amazing hundred from Shubman. It was really wet in the second innings. It was wet in the first innings as well, but there was not a lot of grip in the second innings and also we had to change the ball quite a few times during the second innings. Virat played an unbelievable knock to give us a chance and thought that was a good score, but Shubman played incredibly well to take the game away from us," said Du Plessis in a post-match presentation.

"From a batting perspective, the top 4 contributed really well. We missed a few runs from the middle order consistently throughout the season, especially in the back end of the innings, and also in the middle overs perhaps didn't get as many wickets as we would have liked. He (Kohli) played really good cricket throughout the season and as a partnership probably not a single game where we had anything under 40 as an opening combination. We need to improve well on finishing games, especially in the back end. Last year DK (Dinesh Karthik) had a purple patch and was finishing games left, right and centre, but this season it was not to be. And if you see the teams that succeed they have some good hitters at five at six probably six and seven,"