IPL 2019, RR VS RCB: 3 Mistakes that led to Royal Challengers Banglore's defeat

Royal Challengers Bangalore suffered their fourth consecutive loss in Indian Premier League as Rajasthan Royals defeated them by 7 wickets with one ball to spare in Jaipur. Both teams had lost their first three matches coming into the encounter and were looking for a turnaround in fortunes. Royal Challengers Bangalore are now in a spot of bother with nothing going right for them in this campaign and are already on the brink of elimination.

Let us look at the 3 mistakes that resulted in RCB losing their fourth consecutive game this season.

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#3 Playing only one spinner.

Chahal was RCB's only spinner (pic courtesy- Bcci/iplt20.com)

One of the biggest factor because of which RCB lost today's game is because of not reading the pitch and conditions correctly. This resulted in the team management selecting the wrong combination for the match. The track in Jaipur was slow and was providing help for the spinners. Rajasthan Royals went for two spinners in the form of Shreyas Gopal and Krishnappa Gowtham, whereas Royal Challengers Bangalore just had the lone spinner in the form of Yuzuvendra Chahal.

All the spinners performed well in the match, particularly Shreyas Gopal who too 3 big wickets in the form of Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, and Shimron Hetmyer. Gowtham was particularly economical too as he gave away just 19 runs in 4 overs. For RCB, Chahal also had a good outing as he picked up the wickets of Ajinkya Rahane and Jos Buttler but it was not sufficient. One feels that another spinner in place of a pacer might have made the difference for RCB as Rajasthan won with just one ball to spare.

Virat Kohli and the RCB team management have often been criticized for poor team selections a lot of times and today was another day, where they failed to pick the correct team.

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2. Slow Batting in the middle overs

Marcus Stoinis ( Pic courtesy: BCCI/iplt20.com)

Another reason behind RCB's defeat was the slow batting approach in the middle overs. After eight overs, RCB had scored 71 runs for the loss of just one wicket. They had set a good platform to put a decent score on the board to defend on a slow pitch, but their batting in the middle overs left a lot to desire. In the next 8 overs, they scored only 46 runs, despite losing just two wickets and allowed the Rajasthan bowlers to dominate. In particular, Marcus Stoinis took a lot of time to settle down and was scoring at less than run a ball for the majority of his innings. Even though RCB scored 17 runs of the last over, a target of 159 runs was never going to be enough against a strong Rajasthan batting line up.

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3. Poor bowling and fielding

Virat Kohli ( Pic courtesy: BCCI/iplt20.com)

After setting up an under par target of 159 for the Royals, RCB needed to bowl and field really well to stay in the game, but that did not happen as RCB dropped as many as four catches in the field. Virat Kohli dropped Ajinkya Rahane in the third ball of the second over in the slip cordon. The captain was late to react and let the chance go begging. After that Steve Smith was given two respites in his innings, first by Umesh Yadav who dropped a simple catch at sweeper cover of Chahal's bowling in the 15th over and once by Pawan Negi in the 19th over of Mohammed Siraj's bowling. There was another chance of Rahul Tripathi in the same over but Moeen Ali failed to hold on to that too.

All in all, it was a pretty poor day for RCB in the field and one cannot expect to win after fielding like that.

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