IPL 2018: 4 reasons why RCB had a disappointing season

Rajasthan Royals v Royal Challengers Bangalore - IPL T20
Rajasthan Royals v Royal Challengers Bangalore - IPL T20

The Royal Challengers Bangalore has always been a popular team among the fans. Despite being a team studded with star players from the inaugural edition itself, RCB has not been able to win a single title in the 11-year old history of IPL.

This year too, the RCB fans were in anticipation of a win from the extravagant side as the Bangalore squad looked really good on paper with stars like Brendon McCullum, Quinton de Kock, Tim Southee, Moeen Ali, Colin de Grandhomme featuring in it apart from the primary duo of AB and Virat.

But this was not to be as the passionate Bengaluru fans will have to wait for one more year after their favorite team failed to make it to the Playoffs. Many experts and former cricketers gave RCB a big chance to make it to the final four and some even considered it a team capable of winning the tournament. There were enormous expectations from the team given that they had made some smart purchases at the auctions.

RCB though did not quite live up to the expectation as they failed to even make it to the playoffs. With RCB, one usually associates a fearless brand of cricket but their thirst for a title win remains unquenched in the 11th year. As Virat said, RCB is aiming at a stronger come back in the tournament next year.

Let us look at a few reasons for yet another disappointing show by RCB.


RCB bowling woes

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Umesh Yadav was the most successful RCB bowler

In yet another season of the Indian Premier League, the Royal Challengers Bangalore failed to bowl in the right areas and as a result, perished. RCB had no one else to blame but themselves for some of their poor outings with the ball since it was the bad delivery of the bowler that went for runs more often than not than a brilliant shot from a batsman in case of RCB bowling.

Despite having Umesh Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in the squad, who between themselves have taken 32 wickets for 781 runs, RCB struggled to pull things together, especially at the death. Since Umesh was used predominantly in the front and Chahal bowled out in the middle overs, the rest of the attack failed to live up to the pressure.

Team combination

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Moeen Ali proved his worth to the RCB team as soon as he was drafted into the side

For a good part of the tournament, RCB failed to get the team combination right. RCB got the wrong men for the wrong job and that is why just couldn’t get the desired result. For instance, a Corey Anderson who had not bowled since a year was entrusted with the responsibility of bowling at the death overs and bowl out his entire quota of 4 overs, while the likes of Moeen Ali, who are playing regular international cricket, were tried very late in the team dynamics.

However, at last, when Moeen, Grandhomme, AB and Tim Southee remained the four overseas choices in the team, RCB finally got a move on in the tournament. But that, however, was a bit too late and one bad day meant RCB were too far away from the cup.

Lacked big match temperament

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Inexperienced Siraj improved as the tournament progressed

The fear of victory is far more dangerous than fear of failure and that’s exactly what happened with RCB. Perhaps some of the inexperienced guys did not believe in themselves that they have it in them to beat the opposition and as a result ended up on the losing side more often.

The Bangalore squad seemed to lack the big match temperament and appeared clueless when they were counter-attacked against. The Challengers did not quite rise to the occasion when it mattered the most and during pressure situations were not able to hold on to their nerves.

Over-reliance on AB and Virat

RCB seemed over-reliant on AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli
RCB seemed over-reliant on AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli

AB and Virat did their job to a reasonable amount of success but none of the other batsmen did enough to prevent the ship from sinking. It is almost as if the whole concert needed to be done alone by the superstars while the other crew of the concert were not up to the mark.

Though the duo bailed RCB out of trouble many times, it needed a little bit more backing from the other players in the team to push RCB through. Imagine two batsmen scoring close to 1000 runs for a side in the IPL, most times such a team will end up scoring the target they have in mind for themselves, all it needs is cameos from other batsmen around them and on a few days one of those to perhaps play the lead role.

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Edited by Amar Anand