Mumbai, May 19 (IANS): For Royal Challengers Bangalore to keep their IPL 2022 playoffs hopes alive, they need to defeat the top-ranked Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday and pray for a favour from Mumbai Indians to defeat Delhi Capitals on Saturday. For that to happen, Bangalore batter Glenn Maxwell wants his side to put up a really good show in Thursday's match.
"Just getting rid of all the excitement and making sure that we are 100% focused. It's a little bit out of our hands going forward. If we can control what we can control and put in a really good show and hopefully keep ourselves alive in the competition. That's all we can do right now," said Maxwell in a pre-match chat with broadcasters Star Sports.
In their last game, Bangalore's bowling attack received a severe thrashing from the Punjab Kings' batting line-up and then the batters couldn't chase a mammoth 210, giving a severe blow to their playoffs hopes.
In this tournament, Bangalore have used only 16 players, the least by any side in the tournament alongside Lucknow Super Giants. It has been a far cry from a side that used to do a lot of chopping and changing in previous editions of the tournament.
"It (RCB) is a great place to play. The memory of the guys that have played in the franchise is really key to know who's set the foundations for every little thing that's happened. We are a very professional outfit. For the first time in a long time, it feels like we've got a lot of bases covered, there's no real weakness. It's a shame that we are not in the top two but we feel like we've had a really good season," stated Maxwell.
Maxwell, who has amassed 228 runs in ten innings at an average of 25.33 and a high strike rate of 166.42, signed off by saying that he and uncapped top-order batter Rajat Patidar will try to take the attack to the Gujarat spin attack while hoping for the openers to give the side a flying start.
"Myself and Rajat Patidar are the two guys that try and take on the spinners a little bit more than the others. Everyone else has the roles specified in the order. For me, I just go out and try to adapt to whatever situation I'm faced with. Hopefully, our openers can get off to a hot start and then set it up for the back end."