IPL 2018: Faf du Plessis lauds Lungi Ngidi for his economical performance against DD

South African speedster Lungi Ngidi, who is currently plying his trade for the Chennai Super Kings, made a promising debut to his IPL career. Appreciating his performance in the aftermath of CSK’s previous fixture, Proteas skipper Faf du Plessis heaped praises on the pacer.

Du Plessis is a long-time stalwart at the CSK franchise and has been joined by the Proteas bowling spearhead this season at Lion’s den. The 22-year-old, however, had to wait though to make his IPL debut after being forced to miss an initial few matches. Ngidi had to head home mid-way through the campaign due to the recent death of his father Jerome.

Returned to India with an impressive show

But after returning to India this week, the youngster made an impressive performance for his new team with figures of 1/24 from four overs in the victory over the Delhi Daredevils. His figures are even more clinical as he delivered his overs during the most frenetic periods of the match – two in the Powerplay and two at the death.

Lauding his performance, Faf said, “It was obviously a difficult time he went through losing his father, but he has been bowling really well. He was very close to playing before he left. The 33-year-old added, “He(Ngidi) was smashing those lengths, just bowling really hard lengths. On a pitch like this, that’s the way to go. He bowled really well, you could just see he was confident leading up to the game. He bowled well in the nets.”

Brief match details

The tall robust Proteas showed great nerves, claiming the match-turning wicket of Rishabh Pant and bowled an excellent last over under pressure to guide the yellow outfit to victory.

Delhi required 28 runs off the last six balls, and although he delivered two wides and was struck for a six off the second ball, Lungi Ngidi finished strongly with a couple of wide yorkers to close out the game by 14 runs.

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