The Royal Challengers Bangalore franchise is one of the most unsuccessful franchises in the history of IPL. In 12 IPL seasons, they have qualified for the finals only twice. Since 2017, they have failed to qualify for the playoffs, which is a record the RCB players would want to change this year.
They are led by the Indian captain Virat Kohli who has been an integral part of the RCB franchise since the inception of the IPL in 2008. Despite owning some of the best in the business, the Royal Challengers has failed to attain the desired result.
Death bowling has been the problem for RCB – Chahal
Recently RCB’s spin bowling stalwart Yuzvendra Chahal appeared on Aakash Chopra’s youtube channel where he spoke about the reasons for RCB failures over the years. He stressed upon the lack of death bowlers in the side.
“I have played for RCB for 6 years, the problem has always been, other than the one year when we had Starc, our death-over bowling,” Chahal told Aakash Chopra in an interview on his YouTube channel.
Bangalore have more often than not lost matches in the back end of the game. We have seen them dominate throughout the match but just let the match slip away in the death overs. Yuzvendra Chahal spoke exactly the same how the last 2-3 overs have cost them games more often than not.
“Because we keep a tight leash till the 16th or 17th over, but I feel we have lost at least 30% of the matches due to the last 3 overs. If you restrict a team to 130-odd after 16 overs, you feel that you can keep them to 160 or at the most 170, but at times due to those 3 overs, the score goes to 190 or 200. So that changes everything suddenly,” he explained.
This year RCB have Dale Steyn, Navdeep Saini and Kane Richardson. All of which are capable of bowling in the death overs. Which is why RCB look far more settled side than they did last year. During this year’s IPL auction, their coach Mike Hesson made sure he gets all basis covered before the start of the 2020 season.
“So currently we have a lot of options compared to other years. Because earlier after 16 overs, I used to bowl the 17th over if required else we had only two bowlers to bowl the last 4 overs. But now we have 3-4 options to bowl the last 4 overs. So this thing that we were missing earlier, we have covered now,” Chahal told Chopra.
