IPL 2018: AB de Villiers stays positive about RCB's playoff chances

Royal Challengers Bangalore will next take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad on 17 May.

RCB will face hyderabad at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Thursday | IANS

AB de Villiers is confident that his Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) still have the chances of the IPL Playoffs 2018 following his team’s outstanding display in Indore.

So far in the IPL 2018, Virat Kohli-led RCB have won just five matches of their 12 outings and managed just 10 points and now they have to win their next two encounters against the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals with a big margin to entail their chance to make it to the next round.

De Villiers has also termed RCB’s match against the KXIP as the ‘perfect match’, saying they just need to replicate the same show in their remaining two matches. 

He went on to further note that the RCB will play their next two matches with strong collective mindset and confidence that they have gained from their last two wins over Delhi and Punjab and will fight at the end to make it to the top four in the ongoing IPL 2018.

In his column for The Times of India, De Villiers wrote, “We knew we had to win each of our last four league matches. There is still plenty of work to be done, at home against Sunrisers Hyderabad and away against Rajasthan Royals, and we still have no room for error, but you never know. Two down and two to go, we are fighting.”

He further added, “RCB is not going quietly. Our collective mindset is strong. After playing in Delhi, we faced a long day of traveling on Monday, featuring huge storms. Nobody complained, nobody, moaned.”

Commenting on their massive 10-wickets triumph over the Kings XI Punjab in Indore, where they brilliantly bowled out the hosts at 88 in 15.1 overs and chased down the target in 8.1 overs, South African start batsman stressed on the need to continue with that momentum to have their chances for a round-robin of the ongoing T20 event.

He signed off by saying, “Well, that’s one way to meet the challenge of containing the opposing batsmen in the last five overs of their innings: bowl them out in 15 overs! That’s precisely what happened in our ‘perfect match’ against KXIP in Indore, and the win keeps our dream of progressing to the playoffs alive. There have been days during the past few weeks when it felt as if absolutely nothing would go right for us; in contrast, this was a day when it felt as if nothing would go wrong.”

 

 
 

By Rashmi Nanda - 16 May, 2018

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