Royal Challengers Bangalore may have never won the Indian Premier League, but they have been among the most consistent franchises in the league over the years. One of the reasons the same has been that the star names in their batting line-up have stood up and delivered. This wasn’t the case in IPL 7, and that is one of the key reasons why they have been knocked out of the event, finishing in the bottom half of the league table. Bangalore managed only five wins in 14 games, placing them just above last-placed Delhi Daredevils, who will remain at the bottom even if they win their last league clash.
Like in the last two editions, Bangalore were depending heavily on Chris Gayle to deliver at the top. But, he was injured for a few matches, and just did not look in full flow or in proper shape while batting out in the middle. In fact, Gayle featured in only nine of the 14 games that Bangalore played. The startling stat in Gayle’s performance this IPL season was the fact that he failed to register a single half-century in the tournament. His best in the event was 46. Gayle managed less than 200 runs in total, and even his strike rate of 106 was extremely disappointing.
Equally disastrous for Bangalore was the form of Yuvraj Singh. How Vijay Mallya would be ruing the fact that he paid a whopping sum of Rs 14 crore for the veteran left-hander. Yuvraj finished the tournament with 376 runs with three fifties at a strike rate of 135. The figures aren’t bad per se, but when viewed against the performance of some other players who were paid far less, it would be considered a failure. Also, his stats are slightly misleading. Most of Yuvraj’s better knocks came towards the end of the league stage, by when RCB found themselves in an extremely tricky situation as far as progress was concerned.
Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli’s performance was similar to that of Singh in many ways. He struggled during the first half of the tournament, and by the time he hit some form, Bangalore were all but ousted from the tournament. Two stats about Kohli stood out in IPL 7. The usually consistent batsman managed only two fifties in 14 games. Secondly, his best score came in the very last match Bangalore played. It was a case of too little, too late. For the record, he finished the tournament with 359 runs.
Consistency wise, AB de Villiers was Bangalore’s best batsman. He pulled off a couple of near-impossible wins for the side single-handedly. But, there was only so much he could do. And, once it was clear that Bangalore weren’t in with a chance, his form also tapered away. In the end, de Villiers’ figures were only marginally better than Yuvraj and Kohli – 395 runs with three fifties. Bowling wise, Yuzvendra Chahal was the only one who impressed and, at the end of the day, Bangalore didn’t deserve to progress further in the event.
--By A Cricket Analyst
