Why Bangalore have cut a sorry figure in this edition of IPL
Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainty has been proven yet again after Royal Challengers Bangalore’s shocking capitulation in this Indian Premier League.
Touted as the frontrunners to lift the IPL title this time after their near miss in the final last year against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kohli & Co’s campaign has gone completely awry.
The favourites tag soon gave way with losses piling up and the team is now struggling to make it to playoffs.
Royal Challengers have lost six matches, won two games and one match was abandoned due to rain which caused more misery to their overall standings.
With just five more games under their belt to give themselves some hopes of making the cut, Kohli’s men take on Rising Pune Supergiant at the MCA Stadium on Saturday.
Kohli can lift his spirit up as Pune has been a happy hunting ground for him and local boy Kedar Jadhav run partnership with Kohli scoring 122 and Jadhav 120 to chase down 350 against England in the first ODI earlier this year.
There is no dearth of talent in the Royal Challengers Bangalore camp with world’s cricket biggest superstars all available in their team. So, where does the problem lie?
RCB has struggled big time in finding their right combination. It took them six matches to finalise their opening pair as they tried five different combinations before finally settling with Kohli and Chris Gayle.
Injuries to AB de Villiers meant the middle order was left a bit vulnerable. However, the biggest difference of RCB of 2016 and this time is the lack of firepower in their batting.
Kohli led the batting charts last time with close to 1000 runs in the IPL. This time, however, he is a bit subdued with 164 runs in five innings.
Their other mainstay in the batting department – de Villiers (150), Chris Gayle (152) and Shane Watson (61) have been all been out of sorts this time which has resulted in a collective bat
MALINGA MATTERS
Pace spearhead Malinga, who came into the tournament on the