IPL 2018: Rating the teams after their opening games

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 4.5/10

Yet another underachieving side for the franchise?

The tale of woe has extended itself yet again for Virat Kohli and his perennially underachieving franchise. Every year, the squad RCB put together looks star-studded, powerful, and unquenchable. However, the same old story repeats itself yet again, and they turn from the unbeatables to the beaten more often than not.

IPL 2018 has not started off well for the franchise. They lost their opening game to Dinesh Karthik’s Kolkata Knight Riders, which, quite frankly, looked like the worst side on paper before the culmination of the tournament.

Admittedly, the Men in Red put up a pretty strong total in the first innings of the game. Riding on the backs of powerful knocks from Brendon McCullum, AB de Villiers, and Mandeep Singh, they scored 176-7 in their quota of 20 overs. However, Kohli’s tepid innings of 31 off 33 deliveries and failures from Quinton de Kock and Sarfaraz Khan would worry the RCB think-tank.

However, it was the bowling that led RCB down, yet again. Sunil Narine’s 50-run burst at the top of the order swung the momentum violently in favour of the Knight Riders right at the beginning of the chase. The bowling changes brought on by Kohli during this period were questionable at best and outrageous at worst.

Consequently, KKR cruised to a 4-wicket victory in 18.5 overs, courtesy Narine’s explosive batting and the dual effort from Nitish Rana and Dinesh Karthik down the order.

If RCB want to challenge for the title this season, they have to go full throttle with their batting in every game henceforth and find a way to make their bowling more effective and utilitarian.