IPL 2017: 5 areas RCB need to improve if they are to make the playoffs

Chris Gayle RCB IPL 2017 — Chris Gayle has failed to inspire confidence with his form this season in the IPL

#5 Indian players must step up

Kedar Jadhav RCB IPL.jpg — The likes of Kedar Jadhav need to step up

Apart from the heavyweight Indians, a critical factor of success for teams in IPL has been the performance of second-rate Indians. This year for Mumbai, Nitish Rana and Krunal Pandya have won crucial games while Pune has benefitted immensely due to strong starts of Rahul Tripathi.

Last year, RCB enjoyed tremendous success and KL Rahul was an important contributor by being their third highest run scorer (397 runs).

This year Bangalore has invested and shown trust in Kedar Jadhav and Mandeep Singh. Jadhav started well but in the last five innings, he has reached double figures only twice with 38* as his best score.

Bangalore has used Jadhav in the middle order owing to his impressive strike rate and for the next games too he would bat there. But, when ABD is unavailable for the later stages, promoting Jadhav up in the batting order won’t be a bad idea.

Mandeep Singh, on the other hand, has been a failure with scores of 1,0,1 in his last three innings. His fate now is uncertain and it will be interesting to see if Kohli and Co still show confidence in him.

Among the options, Vishnu Vinod had a terrific domestic season and he could be RCB’s surprise package.