What's stopping you RCB?

This is the IPL season again. The annual Twenty20 cricket tournament in India, organized by the IPL Governing Council, under the aegis of the BCCI,  being the most watched T20 tournament and the second –best-paying sporting league globally, it always makes sure to keep everyone glued to their sofas for good. Being the 12^th season, the craze of IPL it’s concerned to maintain the cricket lover’s excitements at peaks.

The 12^th edition of this season, with lots of players opting to stay away or leave the season midway, was being expected to be the least exciting one. But every season has something stuffed in, as a surprise, which never fails to astonish the spectators. And this season too has too much unexpected, as usual for us. Although being a cash-rich tournament that keeps hovering over our minds, while hogging off all the precious limelight, there is a reason why this season is swiping off the attention like a pro. Being it the lashing out of our captain M.S. Dhoni at the umpires, or the continuous 7 sixes in the last but 1 over against RCB by Russell, who also became the  second player after Chris Gayle to have hit 50 sixes in an IPL season, or talking about Yuvraj Singh, who smashed Chahal  for 3 consecutive sixes. Controversies too did grasp up the IPL season this year, one being, when Ashwin did set up for Buttler’s dismissal, via “Mankading”, to which Ashwin said, in his defense, that this mode was completely fair and not against rules. Poor luck Rajasthan Royals!

Talking about luck and controversies we have Royal Challengers Bangalore on board,  who have 2 of the most controversial issues scribbled which spread up like wildfire. And going through the words that framed those sentences above, speaks more or less of  RCB. The “no ball” by Malinga which resulted into letting them lose a winning match and pitch of the stadium in their opening match which was a cakewalk for the bowlers to kick their bums off. RCB faced something which makes a part of our heart to get concerned.

RCB is a team which has mostly reached for tasting the fruit of success but always fell from the tree. Earlier times, the partnership of Virat and Gayle has given us some unbreakable partnership score record and memories of some amazing matches, and AB Devilliers, the so-called Mr. 360 degree, whose shots have always been out of the box. One can say it to be one of the best team among the 8 fighting teams, which in this IPL season have just glued themselves to the last position of the IPL point’s table.

When the brightest shining cricket star, Virat Kohli, when stands along AB Devilliers, one of the most dynamic players of modern times, we go weak in the knees. This team, well already giving up Gayle to Kings XI Punjab, also made some team rearrangements and replacement. This year, RCB has added up a new age indies star Shimron Hetmyer to its squad. We also got to see faces new to RCB, like Stoinis, who has been traded from Punjab in lieu of Mandeep. The big-hitting-all-rounder Shivam Dube also finds himself in the squad.

So as we can see, RCB had formed up with some astonishing cricket players mix up. But as we know that, only basing on star power can’t make us win a match, it’s the garnishing the right players to fit in their specific roles. That helps to conquer the pyramid.  Just as the Sunrisers, the team, in which except David warner, there’s no Star dominance, but still it makes sure to be in a safe bet year after year.

Coming to the fielding of RCB at the start of this season, it’s mostly ABD which caught match-winning catches, and Stoinis and Siraj on the other hand, lost hurting big catches, and the over of Siraj to Russell, giving him 6 consecutive sixes, was heart-wrenching for RCB fans, making them lose a winning match. And it’s not only ABD who’ll be depended on for catching and scoring as well. Bowlers like Umesh Yadav has the ability to pick wickets first up. But RCB has to look beyond death bowling through him. Chahal has also performed well making up to be the record of one of the highest wicket taking scores.  And previously, batsman like Virat and  ABD were the only among  11, who fetched up runs in their pockets, and once they were swiped off, it became difficult for the team to stretch up to good winning score. But this year they traded some good batsmen like Marcus Stoinis and Moeen Ali who really performed well with their bat, striking up to good numeric values on the scoreboard with taking up great wickets too, and thus we could see they mostly ended up making a good deal with the score, but they flooded off by giving the opponent the chances of a good amount of sixes and fours and losing the catches being cherry on the cake. And when the RCB powered up at fielding and taking up big wickets, batting seemed to be crashing down at reaching a good score.

Every time we get our expectations all high there comes up something or the other reasons which ruin the game while cruising towards the end, say it may be due to some bad partnership on the pitch giving up wickets, or the fielding of our team, or sometimes relying on only 1 player for playing the whole match. Sometimes they get overconfident and commit mistakes and the dangerous part is they fail to learn from the mistakes. Failing to form up as per the need is the responsibility of the captain and that needs to be at the edge.

RCB team has one of the finest bowlers and batsmen, we can assure on it, and it’s also important that all skills should not only be squeezed off from a single talent but also should be let out from others as per the need.  Although RCBs picked up their boldness in their coming matches, trying to climb up the table, luck of the last match which held them up for rain, got them out of this IPL season finally.

All we can say, that we have high expectations from RCB, because they have given many amazing matches to witness, and we believe they can do it, but the right guide and we can get an exponential curve of success through this team. Play bold!