Some structural changes need to be made: Kirsten

With the IPL trophy eluding them for the 12th straight year, the Royal Challengers Bangalore could witness some structural changes next year, coach Gary Kirsten said.

Ashish Nehra, along with Kirsten, are the coaches while Vikram Solanki, a former England ODI opener, is RCB’s batting consultant. Mithun Manhas and Narendra Negi are the assistant coaches with former English pacer Kabir Ali assisting Nehra in the bowling department.

The coaching staff has nothing to boast about as they failed to instill neither consistency or a winning attitude in the side.

“There are some structural changes that need to be made that may have been around for quite a long time. This is my first year as coach so I have got a better understanding of what those changes are. We will certainly discuss this with the owners,” Kirsten said at the pre-match press conference on the eve of RCB’s final game against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Kirsten said the team’s decision to chop and change the combination backfired. “I’ve always been a fan – as I’m sure all the coaches are in this IPL – of continuity,” Kirsten began.

“You want to try and build your core of players and build a culture where you can keep coming back to the same players. I think the most successful franchises in IPL have done that. We’re searching for that in RCB. We need to really start building a core of players that we believe in, and back them. I think the franchises that do a lot of chopping and changing every year run into problems. Because IPL is not about an individual performing every IPL, that’s just not going to happen. But if you keep backing guys, they are going to come good for you in one season,” Kirsten explained.

The former India coach felt RCB’s poor start cost them dear. The Challengers lost their first six games to equal the dubious record set by Delhi Daredevils in 2013. “You got to have a good start in these tournaments. If you are on the back foot early and you have lost most of your games in the first half, you get into trouble in the second half. We have tried to pull it back. I thought we did a reasonably good job in pulling it back in the second half but it is always going to be tough winning seven out of seven.”

“Two big games that cost us that we should have won at the beginning of the season was against Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders here. We lost both those games having played really good cricket for 95 percent of the game. Literally in 12 balls the game changed… in six balls. Those kind of games if you’re not winning them, they start to affect you big time during the season,” he noted.