Guys showed great fight: Faf du Plessis backs his players following defeat against MI in IPL 2025

Jasprit Bumrah and Mitchell Santner's three-wicket haul bundled out the visitors, Delhi Capitals, for 121 runs as the hosts registered a 59-run victory at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.

With this win, Mumbai Indians became the fourth and final team to qualify for the IPL 2025 playoffs. The other three teams for the knockouts are Gujarat Titans, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and Punjab Kings.

Speaking on the team's performance at the post-match presentation, Du Plessis said, "We were excellent today in the field. The guys showed great fight. The bowlers pitched up, obviously not the easiest pitch to bat on, probably made the bowlers' job a little bit easier. But still, it's a very strong batting line-up and I thought we were excellent and then just let it slip there in the last 2 overs. Momentum is a real thing in cricket, the way that they counter-punched to get almost 50 in the last 2 overs, all the hard work that we did for 17-18 overs ... lost that momentum."

Further, the right-hand batter lauded young uncapped Indian batter Sameer Rizvi's mindset during the chase where he scored 39 runs with the help of six fours and a six on a difficult wicket where lot of senior players failed to score runs.

"Rizvi today showed some signs, he's got some talent there. When you're playing against a powerful team like this, you need to be at your best all the time and unfortunately for 17-18 overs we were and then the last two overs we were pretty average, With the bat, you need a good start on a surface like that and we didn't get going at all with the bat. Sums up pretty much our season, we've been cold in either batting or bowling in the last 6 or 7 games," the 40-year-old cricketer added.

In the end, Du Plessis went on to say that the team missed the services of regular skipper Axar Patel (ill) and left-arm speedster Mitchell Starc (opted out) in today's game against the Mumbai-based franchise.

"If you look at the way that Mitch Santner bowled, they are very similar bowlers. To bowl four overs, I think he went for around 10 runs. Axar is that kind of class bowler, an internationally proven left-arm spinner. On a wicket like that, he would have loved to bowl. Unfortunately, he was very sick the last two days. Starc is a fantastic bowler, but especially the spinner on a wicket like that is worth gold. Momentum - I am a big believer that you have to make sure that you never take it for granted. When you are on top of the wave, you've got to make sure you don't lose it as quickly," the former South African player concluded.