IPL 2017: Why RCB are anything but Royal and far from being Challengers

Over-dependance on skipper Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle in the absence of a solid back-up plan has been the primary reason for Royal Challengers Bangalore’s poor show in the on-going Indian Premier League.

Despite being a team game, cricket in its essence is an individual sport and no one would agree to it more than Kohli, with his team’s performance in the IPL bordering on disastrous. His record 973 runs, with four hundreds in a single IPL edition, is not expected to be broken anytime soon. Nor will be AB de Villiers’ 687 runs, which was the third highest of last season.

Cut to IPL-10, and RCB are on the verge of getting knocked out and even winning all their matches from now on may not be good enough for them to qualify for the play-offs. There are multiple factors that could be associated with the debacle, including Kohli’s assessment about “lack of intent”.

Perhaps RCB or the captain could have never imagined that the ‘Three Musketeers’ – Kohli, De Villiers and Gayle would all hit a rough patch at the same time. KL Rahul’s shoulder surgery added to their list of woes as the batting completely fell apart. Both …read more