BENGALURU: 'Will Royal Challengers Bangalore finally break their duck? For the past few seasons of the Indian Premier League, it has been a common question amongst many before the start of the cash-rich tournament. Expectations double up, but it does not take time for them to finish on the wrong side. Case in point: Bangalore finished last twice in the previous three seasons. Just to make their life a tad difficult, they come up against one of the stable and consistent sides in the league, Sunrisers Hyderabad, in Dubai on Monday.
As Bangalore's search for the maiden title rambles on, so does their search for a support cast to Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers as well. How long can the duo carry the team on their shoulders? What about this year? As usual, they resemble a decent team on paper, but it is the on-field performances -- which counts the most -- where things fall flat as a unit. To a certain extent, Bangalore will depend on the services of Australian Aaron Finch, who was bought in the December auction, at the top of the order. In fact, the Aussie's performance could have an overall impact on their team's outcome this season. He has it in him to relieve pressure off the star duo and eventually help the team.
Alongside Finch, either Devdutt Padikkal, who was the star of last domestic season, or Parthiv Patel will open and with the big two and Moeen Ali, their top five looks quite strong. With Chris Morris and Shivam Dube, they have decent all-rounders. As usual, they look a strong batting team, but lack balance overall when one looks at their bowling department.
In fact, death bowling has been a major concern and the likes of Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav and Navdeep Saini did not impress last season too. They might have added Morris in the last auction to solve that problem, but his overall IPL economy rate of 7.98 does not hold much promise. Even more so, it is worse at 9.27 and 10.21 in the last two seasons. However, their spinners -- Adam Zampa, Yuzvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar among others -- might have a big role to play in the Gulf nation.
“RCB are a very strong team, and we are looking forward to getting out there and playing against them again. It will be the first match for both the teams. So we are definitely excited about that and your chances are always going to be 50/50 at the beginning,” said Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner on Saturday.
The first match will be a major test for Kohli’s bowlers with a dangerous opening pair of Warner and Jonny Bairstow in the opposition ranks. If the duo gets going, they are quite an unstoppable side as was witnessed in 2019 when Warner and Bairstow both scored a ton against Bangalore. Add the class and calmness of Kane Williamson in the batting unit, their top three is one of the best in the league, followed by Manish Pandey.
Their strength just does not lie on their batting alone. They have a well-balanced unit with a proven set of IPL bowlers. Afghan spinners Mohammad Nabi and Rashid Khan will be key this season while Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul and Bhuvneshwar Kumar hold the key in the pacers department. A great contest is on the cards when these set of bowlers come up against the likes of Kohli, Finch and de Villiers.