In a 14-game season, you have to be spectacularly inept to be allotted a seat inside last-chance saloon after just eight matches.
Yet, that’s precisely where the Royal Challengers Bangalore find themselves after their latest outing, against Sunrisers Hyderabad, was washed out without a ball bowled.
The irony of it would have escaped no one. Since February, Bangalore have been wilting in early-summer heat. Then, 90 minutes before a match that the home side desperately needed to win, the heavens opened.
At least Bangalore’s under-performing players know the equation now. Unless they win each of their six remaining matches, having taken just five points (two for a win) till now, they will likely be watching the play-offs from the comfort of their living rooms.
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For a side boasting the most intimidating top order in the competition’s history — Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers — that’s quite a sobering wake-up call.
The numbers are the best guide to RCB’s struggles. Last season, when they stormed into the final after a similarly poor start, Kohli topped the run charts with a scarcely believable 973 runs. De Villiers was third with 687, from just 407 balls. KL Rahul in 11th place (397 runs) had a strike-rate nearly as good as Kohli.
Yuzvendra Chahal and Shane Watson were No 2 and No 3 in the wicket-taking charts, with Sreenath Aravind providing excellent back up (11 wickets in nine matches). This season too, the bowlers haven’t done badly, with Chahal, Pawan Negi and Samuel Badree all in the top 10 most economical bowlers.
The batsmen, however, have had a shocker, with the 49 all out against the Kolkata Knight Riders a particularly grisly example of how far they’ve slipped.
Only one man — Kedar Jadhav at No 19 — sneaks into the top 20 run-makers. Kohli, De Villiers and Gayle sit at 22, 23 and 24 midway through the season. The unavailability of the first two for three matches hasn’t helped, and Gayle’s declining output, one blitz against Gujarat Lions aside, has heaped the pressure on them to deliver.
The absence of a gun fast bowler has been felt especially keenly, with Mitchell Starc (20 wickets in 13 games in 2015) missing a second straight season. Tymal Mills hasn’t found any consistency, while Adam Milne and Billy Stanlake haven’t had sustained runs.
Each of the other leading contenders has a pace bowler jostling for second spot in the wicket-taking table behind Hyderabad’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar (16), who topped the chart last season as well. The Mumbai Indians have Mitchell McClenaghan and Jasprit Bumrah, while Kolkata have Chris Woakes and Nathan Coulter-Nile.
For Bangalore to be part of the posse challenging for a play-off place, you sense that the big names in the batting line-up will have to do the heavy lifting. It was always unlikely that Kohli and De Villiers would replicate last season’s epic feats, but they also haven’t had a young Indian player catching the eye like so many of the other franchises have. Rahul was that wild card last year, but he’s an onlooker this campaign after undergoing shoulder surgery in London.
After nine seasons, Bangalore have just three final appearances (2009, 2011 and 2016) to show for all the hype. They have a devoted fan base, and some of the game’s marquee players, but the final yards have proved beyond them. This season, even such heartbreaking failure may be out of reach. The frown on Kohli’s face as the rain came down was the perfect picture to sum up their season so far.
THINGS TO WATCH FOR:
Ben Stokes on fire for Pune
Rising Pune Supergiant all-rounder Ben Stokes. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP
After a dismal start to the tournament, Rising Pune Supergiant are right back in the qualification mix. Along with MS Dhoni’s penchant for the final-over finish — he pulled it off quite beautifully against Hyderabad — they can thank Ben Stokes for his all-round heroics against table-topping Mumbai. Stokes was always going to be subject to great scrutiny after Pune broke the bank during the auction, and his overall numbers (127 off 93 balls, and six wickets at an economy rate of 7.40) are quite modest. But against Mumbai, he was truly Box Office Ben, following up a 12-ball 17 with a spell of 2 for 21. With Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya ready to tee off, Stokes bowled with pace and trusted his yorkers, as the penultimate over went for just seven runs, leaving Mumbai to get 17 from the final one. They fell three short. After costing them 145 million Rupees, Pune will want more of the same.
Delhi need to stop the freefall
Delhi Daredevils batsman Chris Morris. Punit Paranjpe / AFP
After winning two of their first three games at a canter, the Daredevils looked like one of the teams to beat. Since then, they’ve lost three on the bounce. Each of those has been a closely contested game, and unless they learn to manage crunch situations better, this season will go the way of the last, when a fine start was followed by a dismal finish, and no play-off action. Rishabh Pant’s explosive strokeplay needs to be utilised early on, and Chris Morris, who has smashed 126 from just 72 balls, should also be coming in higher up the order. Paddy Upton (coach), Rahul Dravid (mentor) and Zaheer Khan (captain) have a wealth of experience between them, but they have yet to get the best out of a pretty talented combination.
A new string to the Narine bow
Kolkata Knight Riders player Sunil Narine. Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP
In his first three seasons in the IPL, when Kolkata won two titles (2012 and 2014), Sunil Narine took 67 wickets at an incredible economy rate of under six. This season, he has been parsimonious, going at 6.41 in six innings, but has only four wickets to show for his efforts. The remodelled action has clearly lessened the mystery around his bowling, and it’s his other skills that have caught the eye. Since being asked to open against Kings XI Punjab, he’s made 37 (18 balls), six (9), 42 (17) and 34 (17). More importantly, teams appear to be clueless about where to bowl to him. Halfway into the season, Kolkata sit pretty in second place, and Narine, who has had to reinvent himself as a bowler after his action was reported in 2014, is in the hunt for Most Valuable Player, with only Morris ahead of him.
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