IPL 2018 auction: Rating the squads

Royal Challengers Bangalore - 9/10

Openers: Brendon McCullum, Manan Vohra

Middle-order batsmen: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, Pavan Deshpande

Wicketkeepers: Quinton de Kock, Parthiv Patel

Allrounders: Moeen Ali, Colin de Grandhomme, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Aniruddha Joshi

Spinners: Yuzvendra Chahal, M Ashwin

Pacers: Kulwant Khejroliya, Umesh Yadav, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Mohammad Siraj, Tim Southee

For the first time in their 10-year history, the RCB think-tank have managed to deliver a balanced side to the captain. They have the strongest bench of all the eight franchises - at least two quality options for every position.

In McCullum, Vohra, Patel and De Kock, they now have four options for the opening slot and the latter two for the keeping duties. Moeen Ali, De Grandhomme, Woakes, Washington Sundar and Negi have all played at the top level and two of these players in the lower middle order, after Kohli and De Villiers have done their work, can change the team's fortunes.

From the bowling point of view, Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Coulter-Nile, Southee, Siraj and the likes are more than capable of bowling opposition out. If they can get the combination right early on in the tournament, RCB have enough firepower to go all the way.