Faf du Plessis scored 73 runs for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Photo: Twitter.
Faf du Plessis produced a player of the match performance in his first match of the new Indian Premier League season.
The former Protea captain, who also leads the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on the field, undoubtedly did the talking with his bat against the Mumbai Indians.
Thanks to 11 boundaries, he smashed 73 runs in no time to take the wind out of Mumbai’s sails together with Virat Kholi.
The two batsmen scored 148 runs in 15 overs for the first wicket and they fell short of the winning target of 172 runs.
“It was the first time that I could play as an RCB player at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium and it was an incredible experience. It is a great achievement to kick off the tournament with such a performance,” said Du Plessis.
The 38-year-old South African also impressed with his field placements and his own fielding performance and he can undoubtedly still hold a candle to much younger players.
“I’m trying to warm up my old hamstrings so I can move around the field easily,” he joked.
Not a single misstep! The toss, leading the team on the field and with the bat! ????
Faf was outstanding in his first outing in RCB colours at the Chinnaswamy! ????#PlayBold #OurRCB #IPL2023 #RCBvMI @faf1307 pic.twitter.com/ee33YXVK4O
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) April 3, 2023
Even though his last international T20 match was three years back against England, he is definitely still good enough to make the Protea team.
Rob Walter, South Africa’s new white-ball cricket coach, indicated earlier that Du Plessis’ door for a possible T20 return is not yet completely closed.
The evergreen player also ran amok during the just concluded SA20 tournament when he smashed 113 unbeaten runs from just 58 deliveries against Durban’s Super Giants.
In his 330 T20 matches, Du Plessis scored almost 9,000 runs at an average of 31.33 and a strike rate of more than 130.
He previously indicated that he would like to play for a few more seasons.
“My first goal is to play until I’m 40 years old. After that I want to relax a bit, kick off my shoes and do things with my family. But I can’t just switch off my cricket brain; maybe there is more commentary or coaching work waiting for me in the future,” he said at the time.
Mumbai Indians 171/7 in 20 overs: Tilak Varma 84, Nehal Wadhera 21 and Karn Sharma 2/23.
Royal Challengers Bangalore 172/2 in 16,2 boulbeurte: Virat Kohli 82*, Faf du Plessis 73 an Arshad Khan 1/28.
Rash: RCB win by eight wickets.
