As the Royal Challengers Bangalore seek to stop their losing streak over the past three years, they have assembled a team that seems more balanced than last season, when they finished eighth. But what came before? Here are some miscalculations they have made over the years.
The first season squad
The RCB IPL first team was the last time they came close to being a truly representative team from Bangalore and Karnataka, with a local captain and coach. That turned out to be the only positive for anyone in his fanbase; Because while RCB had several big cricket names on that team, with experience and success in ODI cricket, you could have counted the T20 specialists on your fingers. Although T20 cricket itself hadn’t fully evolved in 2008, one must wonder what the plan was with Rahul Dravid, Wasim Jaffer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Jacques Kallis as the first order. Dravid and Kallis became major IPL players over the next few years, but all together as Plan A? It was never going to work.
Corey Anderson in death …
… it was a good idea. If it was a batting inning. In 2014.
However, in 2018, the New Zealand all-rounder, who had battled some injuries from his 36-ball ODI hundred, found himself tasked with throwing 16, 18 and 20 bowling overs to MS Dhoni, Ambati Rayudu and Dwayne Bravo. Chennai Super Kings had needed 71 of 30 and won with two balls to spare.
The miscalculation was not that particular choice alone. Anderson had been hired to replace Nathan Coulter-Nile, who had been retired, and apparently would have been the strike pitcher and death specialist for them that season. Replacing it with an all-rounder that hadn’t played more than a year before the season started was a mistake that led to many imbalances and many painful experiences on the season.
Before 2018, there was … 2017
A year after being runners-up, RCB spent Rs 1.2 crore (about US $ 165,000) to acquire English fast bowler Tymal Mills, who was rapidly rising as a T20 freelancer at the time. While the choice itself wasn’t that bad, the money spent on it turned out to be an extravagance. This was not entirely RCB’s fault: a new pitch at Chinnaswamy Stadium proved so spinner-friendly that even Virat Kohli managed just 308 runs all season, having done 973 in 2016. It was the only one to break. 300 races in the season. in a lineup that included Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson and Kedar Jadhav. Mills played just five games all season.
But while the circumstances of that year may have been out of his control, the auction that followed was. And in that auction, RCB ended up losing KL Rahul, Jadhav, Watson and Chris Gayle. His tactic of spending all but Rs 1.5 crore from his hold bag on Kohli and De Villiers didn’t quite work; and that remainder was spent on Sarfaraz Khan, who didn’t get a game in 2017.
Kohli’s batting position
In the 2016 season, Kohli made a four-century record and opened batting during each of those innings. It was arguably RCB’s strongest hitting lineup and it showed that Kohli’s best batting position in the IPL is as a starter. His five centuries for RCB came when he opened, and his opening average and strike rate far outperformed his good returns at No. 3.
However, due to all the different auction strategies RCB has used in recent years, the middle order has ended up in need of reinforcement. This has meant that Kohli isn’t always blocked as a starter, which he would have been on a balanced team. Subsequently, De Villiers is also never locked into any of the three, four or five in order. To their credit, both players have still managed to be mainstays regardless of batting positions. But the team’s recruiting strategies haven’t allowed them to be at their best recently.
Carousel carousel
RCB’s most successful phase came between 2009 and 2014: they reached two IPL finals, finished third in 2010 and were runners-up in the T20 Champions League. All of that happened under the leadership of Ray Jennings as coach, with Anil Kumble and Daniel Vettori as captains. Vettori succeeded Jennings as coach and also had a sustained career, holding the job until 2018. Since then, the only constant in the leadership has been Kohli. At the start of this season, RCB’s head coach will be Simon Katich, his third in as many seasons. Only the Kings XI Punjab have changed coaches more frequently.
The signings of Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Karthik
RCB’s auction strategy has generally been to overspend on some players and leave little to balance the rest of the team. The hiring of Yuvraj Singh for 14 million rupees at the 2014 auction, in what was then the record for the highest auction price (before Delhi Daredevils broke it for the same player the following year) was one example. In 2015, they fought the Daredevils up to the Rs 16 crore mark for Singh again before losing the new record bid. They then splurged on Dinesh Karthik – Rs 10.5 crore. He remains one of the worst signings in IPL history, as Karthik had 141 runs in 16 games before being released.
.
