'It is probably the most important victory of the tournament so far'- Hazlewood on RCB's win

Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood described his IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore's 13-run victory against defending champions Chennai Super Kings' as their most important win so far.

Brilliant batting performance from skipper Faf du Plessis (38 off 22), Mahipal Lomror (42 off 27) and Dinesh Karthik (26* off 17) and an all-round bowling performance-led by Glenn Maxwell (2/22 in 4) and Harshal Patel (3/35 in 4) helped RCB return to winning ways on Tuesday night after a string of three back-to-back defeats.

Speaking on RCB's performance after the game, Hazlewood, who chipped in with brilliant figures of 1/19 in his four overs, said:

"It is probably the most important victory of the tournament so far. We are sort of at that point where we have to win all games to make the play-off, that's what I feel, and today was the first step in doing that," 

The 13-run win has helped the Royal Challengers claim the 4th spot in the points table with 12 points.

But Hazlewood believes there is still a lot of work to be done in both the batting and bowling department if the team wants to claim their maiden IPL title.

"We have been flat the last three games, we have things to work on bowling, batting and on fielding to be honest. We put it all together and held our chances, so it's the most important victory so far,"

Hazelwood has been a revelation in T20 cricket in the last couple of years. Last season, he claimed 11 wickets in 9 games at an average of 26.63 and this year, he has claimed the same number of wickets in 7 matches at an average of 17.36. Last November, he also played a crucial role in Australia's maiden T20 World Cup triumph.

On his evolution as a T20 bowler, the lanky pacer said:

"It is mostly playing continuous T20 cricket for last three years and learning things along the way in different conditions, against different players. Talking to lots of voices in this camp, there is a lot of experience which is handy, it accelerates the learning process for me who has played just 60-70 T20 games."

RCB will hope that the Australian continues with the good work at the business end of the season.