At this year’s auction, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) went all out to build the strongest possible squad. They had retained their talismanic duo Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers along with youngster Sarfaraz Khan. With the fresh loss, head coach of RCB Daniel Vettori looked somewhat following the wretched run.
Moreover, during two-day mega-auction, they bought some world-class players as they made their intentions clear.
They had a disastrous last season where they finished at the bottom after winning just three games during the entire season.
But despite assembling a good squad, the ongoing season is fast turning into another nightmare.
On Tuesday, they suffered their third defeat in four games.
Nothing clicked for them as Mumbai Indians thrashed them by 46 runs at the Wankhede. Speaking after the game, Vettori rued the fact that his team is not capitalising on the starts.
Virat Kohli’s decision to bowl first was proved right straightaway by Umesh Yadav.
The pacer castled Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan on the first two deliveries of the game.
However, Bangalore could not build on the start as Evin Lewis and Rohit Sharma struck the fifties to fire Mumbai – to a daunting 213 for six in 20 overs.
In reply, Bangalore could only manage 167 for eight in the allotted 20 overs.
Virat Kohli remained till the end, scoring an unbeaten 92 but lack of support from the other end did not let him take his team home.
We are getting good starts. Two wickets in two balls and the last Power Play against Rajasthan wasn’t so bad. But our finishing, the ability to close out innings has been poor. That’s purely an execution. I think the planning and the strategy… it’s all there. We just have to execute better. Particularly on these wickets, last time we had an outstanding wicket at Chinnaswamy. Wankhede has always been amazing,” Vettori told the media.
“We got off to a good start but then we lost few wickets and their spinners got on top of us. I think the frustration will be on the back end of our bowling. We need to better on that front so that the batsmen aren’t chasing so much. When you are chasing so much it puts an extreme amount of pressure on how you play. Virat (Kohli) played exceptionally well, unfortunately, none could go on with him. Our frustration will be how we ended with the ball in the last two games rather than our batting,” he added.
The former New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori went on to lament that Bangalore could have kept Mumbai under 190.
“We knew how the wicket was and we knew players will be super aggressive. We believed anything under 190 was a good result even after that start. But we let it go. Things also went against us. Hardik’s (Pandya) dismissal, had we got him, maybe they would have got 20-30 runs short. It does make a difference in the final score.”
Bangalore will next take on Delhi Daredevils on Saturday (April 21). Like Bangalore, Delhi side has also won only one of their opening four games.