Royal Challengers Bangalore have always boasted one of the strongest batting lineups in the Indian Premier League. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that on most occasions, their batting firepower leads the other teams in the league by a big margin. Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and some former players like Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum are more than enough to terrorise any bowling lineup.
However, the team never managed to make full use of their strong batting lineup and win the league. They made it to the IPL final thrice but ended up losing on all the occasions. Hopes were high from the side when Virat Kohli took over as captain in 2013, However, so far nothing much has been achieved by the skipper and the team. The team exited the competition at league stage in the first two seasons of Kohli’s captaincy. In 2015, RCB made it to the playoffs before storming to the final in 2016 with Kohli scoring nearly 1000 runs.
However, things did no go down well in the last two seasons. The three-time finalists finished 8th in 2017 and sixth in the last season. And according to reports, the franchise is all set to take a big call now.
As per reports in Karnataka’s Suvarna News, the franchise have removed Kohli from the helm of the team following yet another poor season for the team. Kohli is set to be replaced by former South Africa skipper AB de Villiers who retired from international cricket earlier this year. De Villiers’ has been one of Royal Challengers’ batting mainstays since joining the side in 2011. He impressed with the bat in the last edition too, scoring nearly 500 runs despite missing a couple of games.
The Royal Challengers, meanwhile, will be looking to form a strong team by buying some good players in the upcoming auction. The auction for the next season will take place on December 14 in Jaipur.