Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis was relieved after his club ended a six-game losing streak with a 35-run victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL on Thursday. “In the last two games, we’ve showed incredible fighting spirit. The SRH game had 270+, and we got 260. The KKR game also had one run. We’ve been close for a while, but you need to win games to build confidence as a team. Will sleep better tonight. You cannot talk or pretend confidence in the group. “The only thing that gives confidence is performance,” he added during the post-match presentation ceremony.

While Virat Kohli has been the team’s leading scorer, Du Plessis is pleased that other batsmen are also making runs.

“The competition is so fierce, and the teams are so powerful, that you will be injured if you are not at your best. More players are scoring runs now. During the first half of the tournament, only Virat scored runs. Greeny will benefit greatly from scoring runs right now.”

Chasing 207, SRH’s overly aggressive approach with the bat backfired, leaving them 69-5 in the eighth over and unable to recover.

“Not a good night. Few were over average with the ball, and we lost a few wickets during our innings. We were going to bat first, and it seemed to be working for us. “Prior to the last few wins, we thought we were a bowl-first team,” SRH captain Pat Cummins explained.

“The boys have been going really well; it’s T20 cricket; you are not going to win every game. Don’t dwell on this too much.” Taking about their high-risk and high-reward approach with the bat, Cummins said, “I think it’s our strong suit. It’s not going to work every game. In one or two games where it hasn’t gone our way at the start, we still managed to get a good total. I still think this is the way forward for our boys.”