Veteran South Africa batter Faf du Plessis has opened up about his goals and the mental demons he battled while playing a match-winning knock during the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) on October 15 after he was overlooked by South Africa for the T20 World Cup 2021.
Du Plessis finished the IPL 2021 as the second-highest run-getter of the tournament with 633 runs. He also played a crucial knock of 86 to help Chennai Super Kings (CSK) beat Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 27 runs in the final and win their fourth IPL title on October 15 in Dubai, UAE.
Speaking with Paddy Upton on the 'Lessons from the World's Best' podcast, Du Plessis revealed the mental battle while playing in the IPL 2021 and explained how his genuine efforts helped him keep the "negative thoughts" away after his oxclusion from the South African squad for the T20 World Cup 2021.
Du Plessis said: “I have a good batting voice and a bad batting voice. To give you a practical example of this voice, in this last IPL, I had a fantastic IPL, to the point where the goals I set for myself, which were to be in the top three [run-scorers] right from the beginning, I got along to this goal pretty well," Du Plessis told Paddy Upton on the 'Lessons from the World's Best' podcast.”
He further explained, “But, through the process of this, there's this positive and negative voice. To reference one such incident, I'm in the race, but in the semi-final, I get one and everyone shoots past me, and then I'm sitting at number six. So, we win the game and go into the final. It's a big game, and this negative voice goes, 'no, you're not making it, they're too far away.
Actually, you know what, you're a little bit out of form, I don't know how you will get runs in the final. Oh, it's a big game, you got one in the last game'. This voice tells me a failure.”
Meanwhile, Du Plessis had not played limited-overs cricket since December of 2020, which led to his omission from South Africa’s 2021 T20 World Cup squad, and the former skipper said he wanted to prove to the CSA his worth with his IPL 14 performance in the UAE.
He signed off by saying, “I would have [listened to the negative voice] in the past, but then this positive voice goes, 'Top three is your goal. You play your best when it's high-pressure. You're Mr. Dependable. When pressure is at the highest, that's you. Ok, what do you need? 40 runs to get into the top three, well, no, I'll make 83 runs to be number one. I want that Orange Cap.' Also, I want to go, 'Cricket South Africa, I just want to show you how good I am still if you have forgotten it'.”
