IPL 2024: Challengers have multiple weak spots to overcome

Bengaluru: Virat Kohli is a man on a mission. It’s evident. Royal Challengers Bengaluru, on the contrary, don’t seem to have the same intent. 

And so, even as one of the greatest practitioners of batting pads up his statistics, his team stares down the barrel this early in the season.

It’s not so much that they have lost two out of their three games that’s the concern, the fact that they barely look like a competitive unit is the predicament which Faf du Plessis and the rest of the management will want to ponder over.  

RCB’s batting is pedestrian, save for a couple of batters. Their bowling is about as bad, save for maybe a seamer or two. Their fielding isn’t up to mark. This about explains why they are ninth on the table among ten teams right now. 

They could well climb up the table in time, but for now, they have Lucknow Super Giants on the horizon and they’ll want to deal with them first as the teams congregate at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday night.

While Lucknow’s record is even in that they have won one and lost one, it’s plenty obvious that they have the balance which most teams only dream of. 

Besides a quality top-order, including skipper/ Impact Player KL Rahul who is in fine touch, they have a healthy middle-order with the likes of Nicholas Pooran and Krunal Pandya. Their bowling unit too has a fine set of spinners in Krunal and Ravi Bishnoi, but it’s that young unassuming gun of a bowler by the name of Mayank Yadav that’s stealing the show at the moment. 

While Mayank’s thunderbolts have inspired a great deal of fear among batters, it’s the variations he possesses which make him a tough nut to crack.

That said, at his pace - the raw version of it at least - the ball is going come onto the bat nicely, and given how sticky the pitches in Bengaluru have been, it might just work in RCB’s favour. It’s surely something Kohli will look forward to because he does enjoy establishing his authority. 

The issue, however, is Kohli doesn’t seem to have that extra gear the game needs these days. Over and above that, the others in the team don’t quite have it going. 

Cameron Green and Glenn Maxwell were good in the previous game against Kolkata Knight Riders in that humiliating loss from a few days ago, but they will need to do more. 

Frankly, if not for Dinesh Karthik’s cameos at the end, it’s hard to imagine RCB getting as far as they have as a batting unit thus far. But the fact that that’s just one of RCB’s many problems is their biggest problem.