IPL 2018: AB de Villiers affirms RCB’s never give up approach

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) are currently placed in the seventh position of the league table of the Indian Premier League (IPL) having won five out of their 12 matches. They are left with a couple of encounters against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and the Rajasthan Royals (RR), and the franchise needs to win both the matches in order to fathom any chance of progressing to the next round.

Virat Kohli’s men rolled over the Delhi Daredevils (DD) at the Feroz Shah Kotla following which they humbled the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) in Indore. Most importantly, the victories boosted their Net Run Rate to an extent from where they can edge other teams into the top four, provided they are locked on equal points. Meanwhile, AB de Villiers sounded confident about RCB’s fate in the cash-rich T20 league.

No room for error for de Villiers

“We knew we had to win each of our last four league matches. There is still plenty of work to be done, at home against Sunrisers Hyderabad and away against Rajasthan Royals, and we still have no room for error, but you never know. Two down and two to go, we are fighting.” De Villiers wrote in his column for The Times of India (TOI).

In their last match against Ravi Ashwin’s boys, they brought forth their A-game and carved their biggest victory in terms of balls to spare (71). KL Rahul and Chris Gayle threatened to take the match away from them, but Umesh Yadav rocked them in the same over and helped his team bowl KXIP out 88 runs in 15.1 overs. Thereafter, RCB kept piling on the agony for Punjab and eventually won by ten wickets.

“Well, that’s one way to meet the challenge of containing the opposing batsmen in the last five overs of their innings: bowl them out in 15 overs! That’s precisely what happened in our ‘perfect match’ against KXIP in Indore, and the win keeps our dream of progressing to the playoffs alive.

There have been days during the past few weeks when it felt as if absolutely nothing would go right for us; in contrast, this was a day when it felt as if nothing would go wrong,” the 34-year old South African cricketer added.

Here is RCB’s full squad

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