After South Africa made an early exit from the World Cup by losing the match against Pakistan, Faf du Plessis has once again blamed IPL for the poor performance of his team.
Faf du Plessis has already blamed IPL after Dale Steyn was declared unfit for World Cup due to a shoulder injury. This time he again blamed the IPL for the poor performance, especially of his star bowler Rabada who had a splendid IPL season. It’s a bit amusing that South African captain has to come out with such a statement when Indian bowlers are performing well despite playing all the games in IPL.
In the post-match press conference, Faf was replying to a question if Rabada’s lack of potency was down to fatigue, “We did try and get him not to go to the IPL; to try and stay and get fresh. That wasn’t the case of and then when he went there, we were like, let’s try and get him back halfway through the IPL because it’s important, not just for him, but a few other players.”
Kagiso Rabada had a great IPL season as he took 25 wickets at an average of 14.72 for Delhi Capitals, but in World Cup 2019, Rabada has claimed only six wickets at an average of 50.83 and is ranked 25th in the World Cup 2019 wicket-takers’ list.
Faf continued, “So I don’t think it’s not necessarily just the IPL, but it was important for a few guys to rest; and the fact that they didn’t mean that they-you know, they came into the tournament not fresh. That’s not an excuse; that’s just a fact. And KG is-you can see that his pace is probably a little bit down from where he normally is.”
This is South Africa’s worst performance in World Cups, the last time they knocked out of the tournament in the group stage was in 2003. However, that was the final match of the group stage, South Africa’s loss was mainly due to rain and Duck-worth Lewis rule, and not the performance.
