Published: Feb 08, 2016, 11:16 AM (IST)
Edited: Feb 08, 2016, 11:17 AM (IST)
Faf du Plessis has been one of the most successful players in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and after a couple of good seasons with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the South African T20 skipper will now play under MS Dhoni for the new franchise, Rising Pune Supergiants. However the last couple of the months have not been good for him and his national side.
Du Plessis had a woeful Test series in India which his side lost 0-3 and that was followed with a 1-2 defeat against England at home. Even England are currently dominating the ODI series. It was England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler’s quick hundred that helped the visitors go one up in the ODI series and the second game was to be played on Saturday, the day of IPL auctions.
Buttler had not played IPL before and was up for the grabs in auction. Du Plessis warned all the players whose names would be up for the auctions saying that it will bound to play in the minds during the game.
Express.co.uk quoted him saying, “It does play on your mind. I have been part of that and I would be lying if I said you come to the game, and everything is on the game.”
He did acknowledge England’s recent rise in limited-overs cricket but hoped that they did not have a good auction as it would hamper their confidence and South Africa would then gain an upper hand in the second ODI. He added, “You try to make sure you don’t speak about it too much. It is a big thing. Let’ us not lie to each other; the IPL auction is life-changing for a lot of players. Let us hope our guys get picked up for a lot of money, and the English guys don’t — so we can get a bit of confidence from that.”
Well that did not happen. Buttler had a golden Saturday. He was picked by Mumbai Indians (MI) for a whopping INR 3.8 crore and later smacked an unbeaten 48 from just 28-balls to help England go 2-0 in the ODI series.
