We don't have many options in bowling department, need to score more runs to compensate for it: Faf du Plessis

Faf du Plessis admitted that Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) do not have much depth in the bowling department after Mumbai Indians (MI) comprehensively chased down a 197-run target on Thursday, April 11 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

On a belter of a track, Jasprit Bumrah bagged a five-for to dent RCB's hopes of putting up a total of over 200 after Hardik Pandya won the toss and elected to field first. A late blitzkrieg from Dinesh Karthik helped RCB to put on a fighting total of 196/8. However, the chase turned out to be a cakewalk for the famed Mumbai batting as they romped home with seven wickets and 27 balls to spare.

After Bengaluru suffered their fifth defeat in six matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, captain du Plessis rued the lack of bowling options in the RCB camp. The South African legend, who scored his first half-century this season, said that the batters will have to push for scores in the range of 220, while the bowlers will have to try and reinvent themselves going forward.

"At the moment, it feels like, from a batting perspective we have to get and try and push for 220 to have a chance. From a bowling perspective, we don't have as many weapons. So unfortunately it comes down to the batters to make sure that we use our form and our confidence. The scores that we put on the board are probably going to be the only way we are going to get into the competition," du Plessis said after the match.

Du Plessis used six bowling options on Thursday. Vijaykumar Vyshak, who was the most economical bowler on the night, conceded runs at an economy rate of 10.70. Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma stitched a 101-run partnership inside the first nine overs and it effectively knocked the stuffings out of the RCB bowling line-up.

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MI batters made our bowlers make a lot of mistakes: Faf du Plessis

"From a bowling perspective, we have lacked a little bit of penetration [at the start] so we have to go out and find creative ways within our squad we can get a team two or three-down in the powerplay. Just so that you feel like your bowling innings can start on the front foot. It feels, for the last few games, that we are on the back foot after the first few overs," du Plessis said.

"You also have to give credit in the way that the boys from MI came out and played. Put a lot of pressure on our bowlers. Made our bowlers make a lot of mistakes in the powerplay especially. You could see that anyone who came in could find the middle of the bat quite easily. We did know that and spoke about it in the first innings. The dew here looked like it was going to be big so we felt we needed to get 215, maybe even 220. Obviously, 190 [196] or whatever we got wasn't enough runs," he added.

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Suryakumar Yadav scored a 19-ball 52, while Kishan made 69 off 34 balls to orchestrate the thumping win for the five-time champions. Earlier in the day, du Plessis, Rajat Patidar, and Karthik scored half-centuries but those knocks eventually went in vain.