Our bowlers are in a learning phase: Chahal

Bowling has not been the best facet of Royal Challengers Bangalore in this edition. Their leading spinner Yuzvendra Chahal conceded they were making errors at the death overs.

RCB is in midst of another forgettable season with their bowlers failing to break partnerships and leaking runs towards the end. Chahal, too, hasn’t performed upto his standards, taking 10 wickets from 11 matches. He, however, looked sharp on Saturday to finish with figures of two for 28 during RCB’s five-wicket victory over Delhi Daredevils.

“Batsmen were attacking me more last year and this year they are attacking less. If you see, I am not picking many wickets but I have been economical,” said Chahal.

On RCB’s death bowling, the leg-spinner said: “When we are playing for India, we have the best bowlers like Bhuvneshwar (Kumar) and Jasprit (Bumrah), who both are death specialists. In the IPL, there are youngsters who are playing for the first time in front of the big crowds which puts them under pressure. I was the same as I have come through the IPL. They are learning. We are not getting it right at the death but we are trying to see what best we can do,” Chahal said on Saturday.

“We reached the finals in 2016 because of the batsmen, as they put 200 runs in almost every game that season. But that can’t happen every time, and as a bowling unit, we must know that we will not get 200 runs to defend every game. On some occasions, we have to defend 160 too. The wicket in Bengaluru is helpful for bowlers this year and if our batsmen get us 180 so that’s a huge plus point for us.”

Ahead of their contest against Kings XI Punjab’s match, Chahal said the win against Daredevils has spurred them. “We are going there after a win, so the confidence will be high. Both batsmen and bowlers did well today. We will go there and assess the pitch. The ground there is small. They have the best batting line-up in the tournament so we will have to plan against them. We will go there and formulate our bowling plans against their batsmen,” he said.

Chahal is all set to leave for National Cricket Academy to prepare for the upcoming limited over series against Ireland and England.

“Before England, we are going to Ireland. The weather is expected to be the same as in England. I have a month left after IPL. I will go to NCA for training. There I will have a chat with my coach, Hirwani Sir (Narendra Hirwani).

“He has also played earlier in the UK. So, I will ask him about the weather. Our 'A' team will go first, and I have a lot of friends and will find out from them how helpful the pitches are and how the bounce is.”