RCB's long wait for an IPL title continues. Will 2024 finally be the year that they can end their long wait for success?
Last season, felt very much like previous seasons for Bangalore - an incredibly strong top order and then not very much else to follow. With the team they've assembled for this season, it's difficult not to consider that history could well be repeating itself in 2024.
As alluded to above, RCB possessed the most prolific opening partnership of IPL 2023 with Faf du Plessis scoring 730 runs and Virat Kohli 639 runs. Both batsmen passed the 50 mark on 8 occassions in their 14 innings, with Kohli converting 2 of those into centuries.
As the stats below show, while neither batsmen is a super aggressive opening option, they still scored at a very decent rate in the powerplay and laid the foundations for what should have been many more winning totals for RCB last season
Glen Maxwell also enjoyed a 400 run season, hitting at a strike rate of 183 in the tournament with 5 half centuries. It means that RCB's 3 star players contributed over 70% of the teams runs in IPL 2023 with only one other batsman (Lomror) scoring a half century.
The failings of the middle and lower order meant that those great starts more often than not went to waste as RCB's death overs run rate was below 10 for the tournament.
That became a particular problem at home with recent IPL records at the M. Chinnaswamy showing that other than the Wankhede and Eden Gardens, this stadium had the highest scoring rate in the final 5 overs.
With ball in hand, RCB took the most powerplay wickets, averaging over 2 strikes a game while the field restrictions were in place and going at an economy of under 8 an over. Again that should have put them in a fantastic position to win enough games to reach the playoffs if not shoot for a top 2 spot but it didn't...
Bangalore managed just 23 wickets during the middle overs phase of the game all tournament (overs 7 to 15) before struggling to contain sides at the death as they went at 9.7 an over in the final 5 overs.
The likes of Mohammed Siraj and Wayne Parnell both looked very dangerous with the new ball but became a liability at the back end of innings as the graphic below shows. Meanwhile, RCB's specialist death bowler in Harshal Patel struggled to put the breaks on as he went for over 11 an over himself in the final 5.
| Player | Powerplay Economy | Death Economy |
|---|---|---|
| Siraj | 5.9 | 10.6 |
| Willey | 6.2 | 11.3 |
| Parnell | 8.3 | 11.5 |
IPL 2023 bowling economy for RCB seamers
It would also be fair to say that RCB weren't helped by injuries last year particularly amongst their bowlers. Hazlewood and Topley played just a handful of games between them while Hasaranga was also unavailable for the early part of the tournament. The Sri Lankan had been earmarked as a key member of the RCB squad but delivered an underwhelming performance and struggled to come to terms with the conditions particularly in Bangalore itself.
RCB's struggles with the ball last season prompted them to overhaul the bulk of their attack for IPL 2024. Out went big names in Harshal Patel, Hasaranga and Hazlewood as RCB bid for most of the high profile fast bowlers on offer.
However, they missed out on Pat Cummins and Nuwan Thushana and instead are banking on Alzarri Joseph and Lockie Ferguson to fill in the gaps from last season. They also signed another bowler released by GT in the form of Yash Dayal who will always be synonymous with 'that' over he bowled to Rinku Singh last season.
Despite releasing Hasaranga, RCB opted not to bid on a international quality spin bowler, something that might come back to hurt them at times later in the tournament.
Pre-auction, RCB also acquired Cameron Green from MI who were keen to make space in their squad for Hardik Pandya to join. The big Australian will be vying for game time with 2 other overseas batting all-rounders in Glenn Maxwell and Will Jacks.
Career T20 records v types of bowling and in phases of the game
As you look back through the years of the IPL, you'll usually find that RCB have a strong top order and IPL 2024 doesn't appear any different.
We have to assume that du Plessis and Kohli will resume their partnership at the top. The one concern that RCB will have is that former captain Kohli has not played a huge amount of cricket in the 4 months leading up to IPL 2024 while Faf du Plessis struggled in the early part of the SA20 as his JSK side suffered a difficult start to the tournament. He did find a bit of form later in the tournament but at 39 and being a player who relies so heavily on his athleticism both while batting and fielding, time will eventually catch-up with him regardless of his supreme fitness levels.
That being said, if RCB do find their veteran opening pair off the boil then they have alternatives. Will Jacks was injured for IPL 2023 but was retained all the same and his strike rate against pace bowling in the powerplay is frightening while he can also bowl some handy overs of off-spin.
Alternatively, Cameron Green could slot in as an opener although you'd fancy that he's more likely to bat at number 3. With du Plessis and Maxwell all but guaranteed a spot in the team and RCB needing to select at least one of their overseas quicks, it will probably be left to Jacks and Green to fight it out for the 4th overseas birth.
Where teams will still fancy targeting this RCB side is outside the powerplay with pace off the ball. Du Plessis and Kohli's strike rates drop significantly once the field goes back and the spinners come on which makes Glen Maxwell's role in the side crucial. Expect the Aussie to play a floating role anywhere between spots 3 and 5 depending on conditions and the match situation. His main task however, will remain taking on the spinners!
Rajit Patidar also returns from injury to boost RCB's batting options. Patidar played in 3 Test matches against England last month but while his side dominated, he struggled, averaging just 10 with the bat and being dropped for the final Test. Time will tell as to whether that will impact his confidence coming into IPL 2024.
The other obvious flaw in the make up of this RCB squad is the paucity of left-handed batsmen. The 6 most senior players mentioned above are all right-handed so expect opposition teams to look to exploit favourable match-ups with wrist spinners and slow-left arm bowlers.
That leaves RCB banking on Rawat and Lomror to offer them left-handed options in the middle and lower order and while both are talented young players, they haven't to date shown enough in their IPL careers to suggest that they can be the point of difference for Bangalore this season.
The final question then remains as to which batsmen are going to play in those finisher roles at 6 & 7. It could well be one of the left-handers noted above and Dinesh Karthik although the veteran keeper-batsman now spends more time commentating on the game of cricket than he does playing it and he comes into IPL 2024 off the back of a nightmare 2023 season in which he averaged just 11, striking at 134 and recording 4 ducks.
Career T20 bowling stats by phase of the game
Mohammed Siraj will take the new ball and RCB will need him to deliver for them again in the powerplay given some of the weaknesses in other aspects of their bowling attack.
They possess plenty of overseas seam options but fitting them into the squad is likely to prove troublesome given that 3 overseas spots will be prioritised for batsmen.
What it means is that RCB's choices from Joseph, Ferguson, Topley and Curran might well be dictated by which of the other homegrown bowlers they feel are the best picks.
Akash Deep is effective in the powerplay but like Siraj would be vulnerable later in the innings. Yash Dayal would offer a left-arm option and despite his relative inexperience was asked to bowl a lot of tough overs for GT in his 2 year stint with them. That being said, he was found wanting at times last year when he went at the best part of 12 an over and took just 2 wickets in 5 games before losing his confidence and place in the team.
Vyshak is another option for RCB and he comes into this IPL season having performed well with both bat and ball in domestic cricket. Realistically though, RCB have plenty of all-round options in Green, Maxwell and Jacks who between them can fill a 5th/6th bowling option, what they need are pure bowlers who can compete at this high standard.
Alzarri Joseph looks likely to lead the RCB attack and we've seen enough of him in IPL and international cricket to know that he has the requisite pace, aggression and skill to trouble batsmen. He has struck once every 3 overs he's bowled in the IPL which a record that few can match but at the same time his economy rate is over 9.
He (and indeed his back-up option of Lockie Ferguson) would be ideal in a side that has a top quality spinner and specialist death bowler, allowing them to do what they do best which is attack! In this RCB line-up it's difficult to see who is going to provide the ballast to their more agressive roles.
That then brings us onto the spin options which are pretty slim. Karn Sharma was a regular player across his first 3 seasons in the IPL but that was a decade ago and the 7 games he played for RCB last season were his first since 2020. While he performed admirably in taking 10 wickets in 7 matches he comes into the IPL 2024 season without a huge number of wickets against his name in any format of domestic cricket.
Other than Karn Sharma, RCB would be forced to pick spinners with little to no experience of the IPL. Mayank Dagar, Swapnil Singh and Himanshu Sharmahave have played 6 IPL matches between them and collectively have 1 wicket. It'd be a big ask for them to play as a frontline spinner in IPL 2024.
If you're an RCB fan (and there are a lot of them around) then it must feel a little bit like groundhog day as you look down the squad and see it's familiar shortcomings especially in contrast to your big rivals in CSK and MI.
Why is it that those 2 highly successful franchises seem capable of picking a group of players that gives them balance and options throughout a variety of conditions while RCB fall into the same old trap of putting all their eggs in a couple of star studded baskets?
Certainly RCB have the batting power to win any fixture in IPL 2024 that comes down to a straight out slog fest. However, they might well struggle in conditions where run scoring is a little tougher and against sides whose bowling attacks can manipulate the match-ups that they look particularly vulnerable against.
Last season RCB had 3 batsmen who played out of their skins and yet they still managed to finish in the bottom half of the table. The reaction to that was to ditch most of their bowling attack then spend a hefty amount of money on bringing in another top order batsmen in Cameron Green.
As a result, I don't think that you can say that they come into IPL 2024 with a group of players who look capable of overcoming the problems that scuppered their chances of a playoff spot last season and have been a perennial issue for a franchise still chasing its first title.
All stats used in this blog are from my own database which is freely accessible at T20 head to head. Images are my own with the exception of player profiles and background images which are used under a creative commons license or otherwise royalty free
