Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson on Wednesday said “a few of us are not 100 percent” fit but expressed confidence that they have got the momentum back with the four-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL eliminator here. RR entered the eliminator following a run of four defeats. “What cricket and life has taught us is we will have some great days, we will have some really bad days. But we need to have the character to bounce back. The way we batted, bowled and fielded, I am really happy. All the credit has to go to the players,” Samson said at post-match presentation.
“We look at the field set and planning, the credit has to go to Sanga (Kumar Sangakkara) and the team of support staff for discussing tactics.
“Ashwin and Avesh bowled tremendously well. If you look at our batting unit, there is a lot of youngsters. They are 22-years old, they are less experienced but they played well.” Samson added, “A few of us are not 100%. I’m not a 100% actually. There is a bug in the dressing room, lots of coughs and a lot of people are a bit unwell. But we have the momentum now, so the dressing room is confident.” RCB captain Faf du Plessis, whose side made the play-offs from the brink of elimination, said it takes a lot of heart to win six games in a row but admitted they were few runs short of what could have been a challenging total in the knockout match against RR.
“With the dew coming, we felt we were short with the bat. Did think we were 20 runs shy of what was a good score,” Du Plessis said.
The South African veteran added, “Credit to the boys – they fought really well. That’s all you can ask for. If you look at naturally assessing the pitch and conditions, you would say it’s a 180 pitch because it was swinging upfront and was quite slow.
“But what we’ve found out this season, with the impact player, the par score isn’t enough any more. Also with the dew coming in, we knew we had to score more to challenge them.” Speaking abut their fine run after a disastrous start to the tournament, he said, “A lot of teams, their wheels would have fallen off after 1 from 9. But we made sure to gave our best and to come back like that – six games in a row – takes a lot of heart.”
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