IPL 2024: RCB coach Flower demands aggression from batters

Bengaluru: Royal Challengers Bengaluru coach Andy Flower was just shy of coming clean with his unabashed opinion of his batting unit, but he did well to hold back, and yet…

“We scored 184 (182) a couple of nights ago, and that was chased in 17 (16.5) overs,” he said on the eve of RCB’s game against Lucknow Super Giants. “There are still high scores on offer here (M Chinnaswamy stadium). We expect to get a reasonable pitch tomorrow night. 

“If you look around at the totals that sides have gotten, the aggression shown by all batting sides, there are big scores on offer. Particularly so with Chinnaswamy being smaller, and the ball travels in the air, there are big scores on offer. Once our big batters start scoring runs, we will see big scores.”

More than the latter half of that comment, the bit about aggression was the cornerstone of his genteel criticism. 

RCB’s batters, save for Dinesh Karthik, have all looked rather bland so far. Even Kohli, who has scores of 21, 77 and 83 n.o. to his credit in the first three games, can be hauled for not scoring as quickly as the team demands. 

While RCB continued to tackle this batting dilemma, LSG were facing a concern of their own. 

In the last game against Punjab Kings, they replaced KL Rahul with Nicholas Pooran as the skipper and played the former as an Impact Player. That could well be a strategic decision on their part, but given Rahul’s history with injuries, it won’t come as a surprise if they opt to do the same again. 

Pooran, who addressed the conference on Monday, said the team will take a call on that particular situation on the evening of the match. “We have discussed it, but we will take a call based on how he (Rahul) shapes up,” he said despite steering from the question initially.