IPL 6: Flawed 5-bowler theory hurting RCB's title aspirations

What do you do when your team can’t defend a score of 190? What do you do when the opposition batsman scores a hundred off 38 balls? What do you do when your bowlers get bludgeoned for 99 off the final 5 overs? You go back to the drawing board and plan how to get back to doing the basics right first.

As much as you can praise David Miller for a magnificent display of clean hitting or blame Kohli for that sitter that he dropped, you need to first take a closer look at RCB’s bowling attack. This is one bowling attack that has been swinging from average to mediocre and so on and so forth right through this IPL campaign. You are talking here about five international bowlers getting smacked all over the park mercilessly. That look of disbelief and helplessness from each one of those bowlers showed exactly what was running through their minds. They do fine when the going is easy but they just didn’t seem to have it in them when tougher questions were posed by the batsmen.

Their bowling needs serious introspection. Vinay Kumar has been the pick of the bowlers and the most consistent of the lot. Ravi Rampaul has shown at some crucial junctures that experience does come in handy, but still lacks the bite. RP Singh has been mediocre to say the least, even though he has been amongst the wickets. Jaydev Unadkat has been bowling all right but the management does not seem to trust him to bowl at the death.

The spinners too have hardly had an impact on the games. Muralitharan is now past his peak and that is showing in his performances. Murali Kartik has been the best of the lot, but has not been able to impose himself on the batsmen. The rest of the bowlers have just been also rans. All in all, RCB have got a string of average bowlers dishing out average performances when what they actually needed were one or two world class bowlers; the so-called strike bowlers of the modern game, who can be counted on in crunch situations and who can be expected to deliver more often than not. Talking of which will get you wondering why RCB insist on bowling just 5 bowlers even when they have an option of bowling their part timers every now and then.

The whole reasoning that the shorter version of the game is all about innovations and thinking out of the box does not go well with the RCB camp. They still believe in old-school theories. How else would you explain not bowling Chris Gayle on a regular basis throughout the campaign and then suddenly asking him to come on and bowl an over in a crunch situation? Having the 6th bowler who can sneak in an over or two always gives the captain an extra option at the death to choose from his regular options rather than be forced to bowl a particular out-of-touch bowler. This extreme lack of vision from the management is baffling to say the least.

If you look at the other teams, almost everyone has at least 6 bowlers bowling for them on most days. Even Sunrisers, arguably the best bowling unit this season have 6 bowlers bowling at all times even thought I believe they can manage to do well with just 5 of the 6 options. Time and again it has been proven in the past in the IPL that a team with depth in bowling and batting always ends up having a greater chance of going all the way and becoming the champions. RCB have neither, which eventually will be exposed on a bad day. This automatically pushes you to point a finger at their squad and the depth of their resources. A closer look will reveal that RCB have as many as 14 bowlers in their squad, but not one of them whom you could count on with the bat. This primarily is the reason for the lack of balance in the squad as well.

Meaning no offence to Venkatesh Prasad, I would like to point a finger at him as well for not planning the bowling strategies a few notches better and then have the ones taking the field better prepared to deliver the goods on a regular basis. But it looks like the one man this team is missing is a certain Anil Kumble. Leading this very side in the past and also being the mentor, he had a fair enough idea of the team, its composition, its strengths and weaknesses. But his departure and the impending feeling in the management that RCB did not have enough Indian bowlers after last season led them to a spree of hunting for and picking up all the Indian bowlers that were available. Alas, just picking up any Indian bowlers is not good enough. They had to look for quality Indian bowlers instead and they seemed to have missed a trick there that could well cost them the season. If they don’t try and improvise now in the bowling department, I see the RCB wagon derailing even before it reaches the business end of the season.

After all, batsmen win you matches, but bowlers win you championships.