Fans of Royal Challengers Bangalore are very hopeful that this time their team will certainly win their first IPL trophy especially because the women’s team of RCB won the WPL trophy in this season.
However, things are not going in the favour of the RCB men’s team at the moment as they have registered their second defeat in the tournament and many former cricketers feel that winning the trophy is going to be a Herculean task for this team because of the manner in which they are performing.
Yesterday, RCB played their third match against Kolkata Knight Riders at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru and KKR won that match by 7 wickets. Though RCB managed to put up a competitive total of 182/6 in their stipulated overs, KKR chased the target successfully with 19 balls remaining in their innings.
RCB is at the sixth position as of now with 2 defeats in 3 matches and in both the matches, their bowlers haven’t been able to control the batters of the opposition team and they conceded runs in good amount. The top order of KKR was quite aggressive and they took the RCB bowlers for a run riot as Mohammed Siraj gave 46 runs in 3 overs, Yash Dayal got one wicket but he gave 46 runs in 4 overs and Alzarri Joseph gave 34 runs in 2 overs.
The former England cricketer Michael Vaughan is quite sure that it is impossible for RCB to win the IPL 2024 with this bowling attack. He took to X and wrote, “Impossible for @RCBTweets to win the IPL with this bowling attack”.
Impossible for @RCBTweets to win the IPL with this bowling attack .. #OnOn #IPL2024live
— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) March 29, 2024
Tom Moody, the former Australian cricketer who has also served as the coach of the IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad and guided them in winning the IPL 2016 trophy was also of the same opinion as he tweeted, “#RCB have no choice but to play two overseas specialist pace bowlers. #Ferguson and #Topley must start.”
#RCB have no choice but to play two overseas specialist pace bowlers. #Ferguson and #Topley must start. #IPL24
— Tom Moody (@TomMoodyCricket) March 29, 2024
The former Indian pacer Irfan Pathan also pointed out one mistake that RCB is making and that is of not making Glenn Maxwell bowl. He tweeted, “Faf should have bowled maxwell in the power play. KKR did bowl Anukul in power play which worked in a way of economy.”
Faf should have bowled maxwell in the power play. KKr did bowl Anukul in power play which worked in a way of economy.
— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) March 29, 2024
The KKR top order batted beautifully as Phil Salt (30 runs, 20 balls, 2 fours & 2 sixes) and Sunil Narine (47 runs, 22 balls, 2 fours & 5 sixes) gave a good start to the innings and then Venkatesh Iyer smashed a fifty in 30 balls and his innings included 3 fours and 4 sixes. The skipper Shreyas Iyer also batted well as he remained not out at the score of 39* runs for which he faced 24 balls and smashed 2 fours and the same number of maximums as well.
On the other hand, the RCB top order batters other than Virat Kohli (83 runs not out, 59 balls, 4 fours & 4 sixes) have failed to live up to the expectations. While there are many who are praising Virat Kohli for his performance, few are raising questions on his strike rate and holding him responsible for other batters not being able to play big innings.
Overall, RCB has some important matters to deal with and hopefully they will do it soon.
