Played 6, won 1, lost 5 and rooted to the bottom of the 10-team points table – That is the Progress Report of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s performance at almost the halfway stage of IPL 2024. It indeed makes for a sorry reading. Against that backdrop, can RCB chisel out the right path and give its millions of fans something to cheer about in the rest of their campaign? For that to happen, they have to beat in-form Sunrisers Hyderabad in their next IPL game at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
For RCB to bounce back, they need to rectify enough defects in the engine room of the side. Virat Kohli has carried the responsibility of shouldering the batting unit, and is currently the Orange Cap holder. However, the rest of the batting order hasn’t performed up to expectations, though the RCB think-tank would be encouraged by the performances of Faf du Plessis and Rajat Patidar in their previous outing against Mumbai Indians.
RCB’s woes extend to the bowling department as well. Yash Dayal is their top wicket-taker with just five wickets to his name and he just about makes it to top 30 in the wicket-takers’ list at No. 30. Siraj, who was expected to lead the pace attack, averages a tick over 57 and has an economy rate of 10.40. RCB don’t have the required resources in the spin department either, with the inexperienced Mayank Dagar leading the attack. Now, throw into the mix a few strategic errors, and one can envisage why RCB are languishing in last place.
On the other hand, SRH are one of the contenders to make it to the playoffs, currently sitting pretty at the fourth slot with six points. With Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma in their ranks, SRH have enough firepower. Nitish Reddy, the all-rounder, also has provided evidence of his batting prowess, scoring a crucial 64 in his previous match versus Punjab Kings. Such is the depth in SRH’s batting line-up that Aiden Markram’s strike rate of 129.59 pales in comparison.
The architect of SRH’s renaissance, though, has been Pat Cummins. The SRH skipper has bowled at different stages of the innings, and has shown the required bowling smarts by varying his pace and angles and hitting the deck hard. Cummins’ captaincy has also brought about a sense of calmness to the side, which is in contrast to du Plessis’ rather below par leadership in this tournament. T Natarajan, Jaydev Unadkat and Bhuvneshwar Kumar too have made useful contributions at different stages of their campaign.
On paper, the well-oiled SRH unit start as the overwhelming favourites to seal their fourth win of the tournament. Just that in front of a boisterous home crowd, RCB might still raise their game and end their losing streak. Although charting a turnaround seems unlikely at the moment.
Tea-ing off with RevSportz: CSK wins against MI, Maidaan BTS and more https://t.co/QmCrTeYTVp
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) April 15, 2024