Former Indian great Sunil Gavaskar has showered praise on the Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) performance in the second half of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 and termed it as “absolutely phenomenal”.
The Faf du Plessis-led RCB had managed to secure just a single victory their first eight games, against Punjab Kings. However, after initially struggling at the bottom of the standings in the first half of the tournament, RCB staged an impressive comeback by winning their final six matches to secure a spot in the top four. The RCB ended the league stage on 14 points.
In the do-or-die affair against defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Yash Dayal’s outstanding performance, which included dismissing MS Dhoni in the final over, propelled RCB to a remarkable 27-run victory. As a result, RCB advanced to the IPL 2024 playoffs and will now be up against Rajasthan Royals
(RR) in the Eliminator on Wednesday.
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What Gavaskar said
“What RCB have done has been absolutely phenomenal. Nothing short of phenomenal. Firstly, to believe that they can bounce back takes something special. The leading players there, Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, and other senior players, must be the ones most encouraging to the other team members. Other team members can quickly get into a situation where they might feel we’ve lost everything,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports Cricket Live.
“It’s up to the seniors, and I think they have done their job. They have done it by showing them how. Faf and Virat have played extraordinary cricket. Rajasthan, on the other hand, have lost their last four or five matches, and they didn’t play well in their last game. So they’ve been out of practice. Now, unless they do something special like KKR did today, despite not playing for 11 days, it could turn out to be another one-sided game tomorrow. My fear is that it will be another one-sided game where RCB, who are playing just absolutely phenomenal cricket, will walk all over RR,” he added.
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Kevin Pietersen shares his thoughts on the IPL 2024 eliminator
In the meantime, ex-England cricketer Kevin Pietersen has also provided his insights on the eliminator match between RCB and RR.
“RCB is playing cricket as well as they’ve ever played. They’ve got themselves to a situation where momentum is all in their favour. They’ve got bowlers bowling well, batters batting brilliantly, and Faf du Plessis leading them as well as he’s ever led a team. So, I find it very, very hard to think that Rajasthan are going to put up a fight tomorrow,” he said.
“They’ve lost Jos Buttler, and Jos Buttler is such a big player. When you open with Yashasvi Jaiswal, and you know that he looks up to Jos so much, it is such a big loss. It’s actually quite sad that the England players have had to leave this tournament and they’re not here on the bigger stage. I’m sure the players would love to be playing here on the bigger stage in Ahmedabad and then off to Chennai to play the finals. This tournament deserves that, and it’s just unfortunate that some of the biggest players in the world are not going to be here,” Pietersen added.
