Glenn Maxwell, who played an all-round role in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) crucial eight-wicket victory over Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022, has admitted that the team will be closely watching Saturday’s match between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals.

Despite being in fourth place in the points table, Bangalore’s chances of making the playoffs are entirely dependent on Delhi losing to Mumbai in the tournament’s second-to-last league match.

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“We’ll be probably watching the Mumbai v Delhi game pretty closely. I wouldn’t mind a round of golf (Friday). There will be a bit of rehab going on. But I think the guys will stay really focused. The amount of hard work and effort that has gone into this team this year. We feel like we deserve to be in the final four and, hopefully, Mumbai will do the right thing by us and get us into the final four,” said Maxwell after the match.

After losing the toss, Bangalore had everything going for them in this match. Maxwell set the tone for Bangalore in the power play, completing a one-handed screamer at second slip to dismiss Shubman Gill cheaply, then trapping Matthew Wade lbw.

“In my mind I was moving a little bit too slowly and wasn’t going to get there. It just hit perfectly in the fingers and stuck nicely. I’ve practiced that stuff my whole life and it’s not something that is just out of the blue. It’s one of those things I work really hard on.

“To have it stick perfectly and it gave us a great start, we were able to control the powerplay after that. It was just about holding my length. We saw Sai (Kishore) bowled beautifully there and there was a bit of hold for the finger spin. So just trying to make the most out of anything out of the surface,” stated the all-rounder.

With the bat, Maxwell unleashed a flurry of boundaries in a blazing finishing show of 40 not out off just 18 balls to finish off the chase in style. “I didn’t want to soak up any time. If I could get those first couple away and try to take the pressure off Virat at the other end, we can keep the momentum going.

“If I got out first ball, it wouldn’t have made a difference but if I soaked up a few dots, it could have given them some momentum back. Just trying to be ultra positive and obviously leave the game with no doubt because we felt like we dominated with the bat in that innings,” remarked Maxwell.

Maxwell had a huge slice of luck on the very first ball he faced, just like Kohli and Faf du Plessis did with some streaky boundaries. Rashid Khan’s leg-spinner hit the top of Maxwell’s leg stump as the batter attempted to swipe across the line. The bails, however, did not come off, and the ball rolled away for four byes.

“I didn’t (see it), but when I missed it, I thought that’s going to be pretty close to them. The worst thing is picking a wrong-un and missing it and thinking it’s going to hit the stumps. You get those times when you need a bit of luck. Sometimes throughout this tournament it’s been a bit up and down. You gotta take the good with the bad. It’s like runout off the bowlers hand. Some things you can’t do anything about but at least the bails stayed on for me this time,” concluded Maxwell.

(Inputs from IANS)