(Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore is the only team to not have won a single contest this IPL season. They have lost six straight matches and need a miracle to make it to the knockout stage. RCB needs to win all their remaining eight matches to salvage any hope of making it to the Play-offs.)
More than any other format in cricket, Twenty20 is premised on the superiority of the batsman over the bowler. Even the most-skilled practitioner with the ball gets merely 24 deliveries to have a say on the match. But if a destructive batsman is present for 120 balls, you would bet that his team will go on to win the game.
Royal Challengers Bangalore is a team built on this imbalance. It's not that skipper Virat Kohli and the team management are not aware of the various ways in which a successful T20 team could be composed. Rather, it is their insuperable belief that might with the willow will deliver the loudest blow.
It is an approach that has worked for RCB in the past, most notably in 2016 when the franchise reached the Indian Premier League final. Since then, however, the Virat Kohli-led side has won only nine of its 34 matches. This season, RCB has already emulated the worst ever start to an IPL campaign by losing its first six matches. Any hopes of making the playoffs are extinguished before the tournament even reaches its halfway point.
But even before one looks at RCB’s strategic failures, an assessment of fundamental failings must be done. The franchise has dropped 14 catches, bowled six no-balls and misfielded or overthrown the ball 17 times this season, according to ESPNCricinfo.
No other team has performed worse on these counts in the ongoing IPL.
But it is the manner of RCB’s defeats that tell the story of a top-heavy batting unit creaking under pressure.
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