RCB got batting line up wrong
Royal Challengers Bangalore is one team which has made lot of headlines even before they played the first edition of Indian Premier League. The team then led by Rahul Dravid packed its team with full of bowlers which was surprising considering that T20 format is a batsmen game and hit out or get out is considered the formula in this format. To complicate matters the Rahul Dravid chose to have batsmen who were pushers and nudgers more in his mould and the end result was there for everyone to see as Royal Challengers Bangalore finished last in the first edition of the Indian Premier.
Team owners of Bangalore after conducting a post mortern realized the team they had at their disposal was good enough for Test Matches and went in pursuit of players like Kevin Pietersen, Ross Taylor and Robin Uthapa who are capable of winning matches single handedly on their day and the result was there for everyone to see as Royal Challengers Bangalore after a poor start picked up pace and finished runner up to Deccan Chargers in the finals of the second edition of Indian Premier League in South Africa.
While Bangalore has had success in the second and third editions of Indian Premier League one must also say that they were lucky that results went their way because their opponents played mediocre cricket in crunch matters. If one were to look at the results of the recently Champions League T20 Royal Challengers Bangalore Royal Challengers Bangalore can proudly say that they made it to the semi finals but must also say that while they have got a good team in the likes of Ross Taylor, Robin Uthapa, Dale Steyn, Cameroon White, Jacque Kallis and Anil Kumble they got the batting combination horribly wrong.
Let us take the case of Jacque Kaliis and Rahul Dravid who are similar in many ways as perform the same role in Tests and one dayers for their respective South Africa and Rahul Dravid and their task is anchoring of innings while the more talented stroke players around them and while Jacque Kallis has got the ability to play the big shots on his day he is there in the team as a anchor. The best way to use Kallis and Dravid would be to ensure stroke players bat around one of them at one point of time say for example Kallis will open the innings with a stroke player like Uthapa and the moment Uthapa is dismissed Ross Tyalor joins Kallis and if Kallis were to be dismissed then Rahul Dravid comes in. However Anil Kumble by making the pushers and nudgers duo of Kallis-Dravid open the innings has ensured that not too many big shots are played in the innings if they bat long and the batting power play too is wasted by default. If Robin Uthapa or Ross Taylor was to bat with one of them then they would have got far many big shots than Dravid or Kallis and would have boosted the run rate and the batsman to follow would not have been under pressure and that is exactly what happened with Rahul Dravid and Kallis ending Champions League with poor strike rates of 108.46 and 126.08 respectively.
Anil Kumble ploy to open with the duo of Kallis and Dravid would have been to ensure that they lay a solid foundation without losing wickets so that the batsman to follow can give the charge to bowlers but the move is bound to back fire irrespective of the fact whether it clicks or fails. If the move clicks and the duo bat for a long time the pace at which they normally score means that there will be huge pressure on the batsman to follow. If for example both of them are still at the crease after 16 overs they would scored only about 120 which means the batsmen to follow have get around 60 odd in 4 overs to post a challenging total. However if the move were to backfire and both of them fall early the batsmen to follow have the task of rebuilding the innings as well in their absence.
The team composiition and batting order of Royal Challengers Bangalore seems to be dictated more by the mindset of their skippers than the team management because the then skipper Rahul Dravid and current skipper Anil Kumble are primarily known for being Test Match players and seem to adopt the same pattern in T20 format as well and while the results may go in their favour on a few occasions it is bound to fail on far more occasions.
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