IPL 2023: Faf Du Plessis Reflects on Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Campaign

After 3 back to back playoffs, Faf Du Plessis and his team Royal Challengers Bangalore this year could not make it to the top 4. There were some injury concerns but mostly, the lack of a good middle order was the major issue with the team. In all 14 matches this season, Faf Du Plessis led the team from the front, contributing as many runs as possible. While Faf received support from Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell here and there, Mohammad Siraj was the lone man in the bowling line-up.

After the elimination of the Royal Challengers Bangalore from this year’s competition, Faf Du Plessis reflected on the campaign. During the post-match video, Faf Du Plessis expressed disappointment at the elimination. He went on to mention that there were several positives but they were lucky as a team to witness some outstanding performances throughout the season. The Royal Challengers Bangalore had to win the game against Gujarat Titans to finish in the top 2. But, the performance of Shubman Gill took the match away from them.

“We probably don’t deserve to be in the semifinal,” says Faf Du Plessis

“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. We were lucky that there were some really good performances throughout the season. But, as a whole team, we probably don’t deserve to be in the semifinal, if you look at the period of 15-14 games. It still hurts. I mean, we tried really hard tonight and unfortunately just fell short. 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,” Faf Du Plessis said.

Faf Du Plessis was appointed as the Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper in 2022 after Virat Kohli stepped down. Both Virat Kohli and Du Plessis had an off-season last time. However, in this year’s IPL, the duo created a record by having the most number of 50+ partnerships in a single IPL season. Moreover, they also have the joint most runs 939, at par with Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers.