4 reasons why Royal Challengers Bangalore have been poor so far

With four matches gone, the star-studded Royal Challengers (RCB) Bangalore find themselves at the seventh place in the table and after last night’s loss to Mumbai Indians, their problems seem to be escalating. Considering the fact that they did reasonably well at the auctions this year and improved their bowling, many expected them to be one of the best teams in the tournament.

Needless to say, RCB can still make it into the top four because they have 10 games to play but over the course of these first four games, some glaring issues with the team have come to the fore which need to be fixed if they are to entertain the possibility of making it to the knockout rounds.

Here are four reasons why they have failed to assert their authority in the tournament thus far.

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#4 Ineffectiveness of the bowling attack

Despite Umesh Yadav’s heroics in the game against Kings XI Punjab, the fact remains that the RCB bowling attack has been one of the least effective ones in the IPL so far. In the very first game against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), they could not defend 176 and in their last two games, their attack conceded totals of 217 (against Rajasthan Royals) and 213 (last night against Mumbai Indians).

The spin bowling department, fronted by two extremely competent limited overs bowlers in Washington Sundar and Yuzvendra Chahal has not delivered the good so far for the RCB. The control that top class spin duos (like Narine and Kuldeep Yadav for instance) provide a team is absent here.

On the other hand, their expensive overseas all-rounder Chris Woakes has blown hot and cold so far. The lack of pace and imagination in his bowling has often been cruelly exposed. RCB’s death bowling has been nothing short of disastrous so far and in fact, their coach Daniel Vettori stated that he is ‘frustrated’ with it.

#3 Middle-order muddle

Mandeep Singh has been somewhat consistent

The RCB top order is one of the best in the tournament and more often than not, the trio of Quinton de Kock, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers will have to bat out for the majority of the innings. However, there will be times when the middle-order will have to show its worth.

So far in the IPL this year, the RCB middle-order has been a spot of bother.

Mandeep Singh has been somewhat consistent but it is hard to see him finishing off the innings in a flourish on a consistent basis. Sarfaraz Khan may be a promising player but he has been poor so far and Chris Woakes’s batting is simply not suited to T20 cricket.

Washington Sundar has looked quite promising so far and maybe he could prove to be RCB’s middle-order star for the rest of the tournament. However, thus far, the middle-order problem has set them back as a team.

#2 Quinton de Kock hasn't provided them with swift starts

His run of scores so far reads 4,45,26 and 19

When RCB let go of Chris Gayle and replaced him with South African wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock, it looked like an extremely shrewd move. First of all, he is a dual skill player and secondly, he can be an extremely damaging player for the opposition in his capacity as an opening batsman.

However, things have not turned out as many expected. The runs that a team ultimately end up making depend a lot on the start given by the openers and in that regard, RCB's opening batsmen have been quite poor so far.

A large part of that problem lies with the poor form of De Kock and his inability to provide the team with the starts that could give them the platform to make the big scores. His run of scores so far reads 4,45,26 and 19.

In the last two games, in which RCB were chasing 200 plus scores, the left-hander could not give the starts that could make the job a bit easier for the other batsmen. His poor form is another huge factor in RCB's batting not yet clicking as a unit yet.

#1 Tactical blunders

In a tournament like the IPL, no tactical blunder goes unpunished and RCB have committed far too many of them so far

T20 cricket is a format of the game where success depends a lot on the tactical acumen of a team’s leadership and management. On top of that, the tactical changes need to be implemented fairly quickly due to the frenetic nature of the game but in case of RCB, it has been missing. In only four games, plenty of tactical blunders have already come to the fore.

Some of them have in fact been basic. For instance, in the game against Rajasthan Royals, RCB included Pawan Negi in the side but the left-arm spinner bowled only one over despite the fact that the fast bowlers were being taken to the cleaners. Negi is well known for varying his pace and bowling in the blockhole but RCB decided to stick to the fast bowlers.

In the very first game, opening the bowling with spin killed off the match early against KKR as Sunil Narine took Chahal to the cleaners. In a tournament like the IPL, no tactical blunder goes unpunished and RCB have committed far too many of them so far.