If you honestly believe IPL isn’t the biggest sporting event in India, then you are probably living in an alternative version of reality. In fact, IPL is more than just a cricket tournament, it’s a celebration of the game itself, a festival that lasts for over a month that millions of people from all over the country enjoy. Now with things like Dream11 and online betting at Leovegas, the engagement that people have had with this particular tournament has reached a level that was previously unheard of, which has just resulted in the tournament becoming more popular than ever.
Eight teams competing for glory in one of the most watched leagues in the world that don’t involve football. IPL has led to the discovery of amazingly talented players like Virat Kohli, who are now shaping the future of the Indian Cricket Team. It’s always fun to watch which teams will make it to the playoffs and which ones will find themselves resting at the bottom of the charts.
However, if there is one team that has had the most disastrous IPL season ever, then it has to Royal Challengers Banglore, ironically the team captained by the aforementioned Virat Kholi. While they did manage to get a few wins in the last few matches, it was already too late and it’s safe to say that this their performance this year has been nothing short of disastrous and their fans are devastated as a result.
But what caused the team captained by, debatably, the best playing batsman man in the world, so fall so hard into the bottom of the IPL chart? Let’s find out.
An out of form ABD
AB de Villiers is another fan-favourite cricketer that has fans all over the world. In fact, he ranks among some of the best batsmen currently playing. Not only that but he has proven himself in IPL again and again but this just wasn’t his season.
RCB seriously relies on their top two batsmen to set the targets extremely high or to chase down any target with ease. However, with one of their aces not being able to perform at his peak, this strategy quickly crumbled away, contributing massively to their status as the biggest loser of the year.
Lack of a Consistent Team
One the reasons that CSK does so well nearly every season it plays, is that the team is extremely consistent. You know exactly who is going down to open up the innings and mostly the batting order is pre-planned and unchanged for the most of the season.
RCB, this season, on the other hand, made a huge blunder. During their first six matches, out of which they one exactly zero, they shifted around the batting order so much it would not be completely unfair to assume that the players themselves only became aware that it was their turn to bat when someone was declared as out. The regularly changed who they sent to open the matches and this technique proved to be another big blunder for the team.
Less-than-Mediocre Bowling
Every cricket fan knows that unless you have good bowlers, it doesn’t really matter how high you set the target even a decent team will be able to reach it with relative ease. RCB has no shortage of bowlers who have performed well in the past but their performance streak just didn’t seem to bleed into this season of IPL.
The bowlers just weren’t able to pick the important wickets when it mattered the most which costed them heavily once the matches started to reach their conclusion. The bowling just wasn’t happening with RCB this season.
The crumbling batting order
While AD de Villiers was certainly thought of as their ace in the hole after the captain himself, they had other fantastic batsmen like ShimronHetmyer who just didn’t perform well at all this season. ShimronHetmyer himself only managed to score 15 runs in the first 6 matches he played which is terrible by any stretch of the imagination.
While their bowling left a lot to the desired, it was the batting performance that was far more disappointing, considered the sheer quality of batsman they had in the team this season.
Virat Kohli
Look, no one can deny that Virat is one of the best batsmen that are currently still playing, but he seems to still be lacking in one area.
Virat has been the captain of RCB for years now and during all that time the team has never managed to win a single season. Clearly, something is not right. Since he has been made the captain of the Indian Cricket Team, people have often pointed out that he still looks to Dhoni when deciding what to do in a tense situation.
All the decisions that led to the downfall of RCB this season can be traced back to him and we can only hope that he does a much better job when he is leading Team India into the World Cup in the coming weeks.