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Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul said his bowlers failed to execute team "tactics and strategies", allowing Faf du Plessis play a captain's knock in Royal Challengers Bangalore's 18-run win in their IPL match in Navi Mumbai.
RCB captain Du Plessis smashed a 64-ball 96 to take his side to 181 for 6. RCB then restricted LSG to 163 for 8 to win the match at the DY Patil Stadium here on Tuesday night.
"Something we could have done better is we knew what the wicket was and what lengths to bowl. We needed to stick to that for longer periods of time," Rahul said during the post-match press conference.
"Sometimes we just went a little too far ahead in terms of our tactics and strategies. We wanted not to be predictable and try the batter guessing.
"But on a pitch like that, where there was help, even if we were predictable, if we could have kept in the right areas, would have probably got us a couple of more wickets in the middle and put the squeeze on them."
Rahul said his team gave away too many runs in the powerplay despite getting early wickets.
"I think we started really well after getting two wickets in the first over, to give away 50 in the Powerplay, we should have done better. 180 on that pitch was 15 or 20 runs extra that we gave away," Rahul said.
"The pitch was sticky. We got the early breakthroughs we were looking for but we couldn't squeeze in the middle. We needed one big partnership -- we saw what Faf did for RCB -- I think we needed one batter in the top three or four to play a long innings and for other batters to play around with him but we couldn't get that."
The LSG skipper lavished praise on his rival skipper for playing one of the best captain's knocks.
"We have all seen Faf playing over the year. He is a very good player, not just spin but overall he has been playing well in IPL over the last few years," he said.
"It was not an easy wicket to bat on but he constructed the innings really well, something we as a batting unit (could have done), one of us in the top 3 or 4 had to play an innings like that, where we bat deep.
"That could have given us best chance to win this game but unfortunately we couldn't string in those partnerships. It was a very good knock. It was one of the best captain's innings that he (Du Plessis) could have played."
LSG take on Mumbai Indians on Sunday.