After Mumbai Indians trounced Royal Challengers Bengaluru by seven wickets in Wankhede, Mumbai on April 11, losing captain Faf du Plessis rued the lack of firepower in the bowling department.

Mumbai Indians gunned down RCB’s target of 197 with 27 balls spare. The batting performance was powered by a 101 opening stand by Rohit Sharma (38 off 24) and Ishan Kishan (69 0ff 34) followed by a Suryakumar Yadav blitzkrieg (52 off 19). As a result, RCB slumped to their fifth defeat in six games this season.

Du Plessis admitted the lack of “penetration” in his team’s bowling because they don’t have “as many weapons” as the other teams. He further added that RCB batters need to score heavily to give his side a chance to compete.

“At the moment, it feels like, from a batting perspective we have to get and try and push for 220 to have a chance,” du Plessis said. “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.

Captain Faf with some hard facts after last night’s game! 📝#PlayBold #ನಮ್ಮRCB #IPL2024 #MIvRCB pic.twitter.com/7stNyOYD7a

— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) April 12, 2024

“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.”

All six RCB bowlers were taken to the cleaners by the opposition as they leaked 72 runs in the first six overs without any success. The most economical bowler, Vijaykumar Vyshak, bowled his three overs for 10.66, while Akash Deep proved to be the most expensive of the lot, conceding 55 off 3.3 overs at 15.71.

Du Plessis praised Mumbai for putting up a batting clinic: “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.”

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