Royal Challengers Bangalore is one of the strongest support systems for Virat Kohli over the years. They have seen him rising through the ranks and becoming next to the invincible with his tremendous rise in batting standards. During the course, he also attained the captaincy for his impeccable work with the bat.
But, his captaincy stint with the team hasn’t gone down well. He failed to make things happen for the team, as they are yet to taste the final victory in the tournament. The best that the team had done under his captaincy was in 2016 when they lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final.
Under Virat Kohli, they reached finals only once:
RCB has a massive and enthusiastic fan base all over India especially in their home city of Bangalore. Their fans come up in big numbers in their matches and are quite vocal at that time. A sea of red can be seen in the stands at the time of their matches but unfortunately, they never crossed that final mark.
Coming back to Virat Kohli’s captaincy, in 2012, he was handed the reigns. The season was a roller-coaster ride, where they ended up their campaign on 5th in the points table. It was the season when Chris Gayle scored a massive tally of 733 runs to his name. The next season was also a similar show.
Then in 2014, it was the repeat of the story again, in fact, a worse year for the franchise. They finished 7th under Virat Kohli’s captaincy. They had only 35% of winning percentage in that year, which tells you the story.
And in 2015, they made it to the playoffs. It was a breakthrough season for Yuzvendra Chahal and AB de Villiers also showed his class during the crunch times of the tournament. But, they failed to win the second eliminator, which saw them being out of the race.
The following year 2016 was their best season under Virat Kohli’s captaincy. The skipper led the team from the front not only with his captaincy but also with his batting. He garnered 973 runs at an incredible average. But, outsmarted by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final.
And then, they once again displayed their poor performance. Perhaps, the worst ever. They finished 8th in the table even when two new teams made an entry into the tournament. Following year, 2018 was also a similar show but this time, they ended up on 6th in the table.
All those stats would certainly ask Virat Kohli to step down from the captaincy. He is already leading the Indian National Cricket Team but there is a huge contrast in results comparing to National’s team performance in Franchise performance.
| Year | Performance | Best Batsman | Best Bowler | Winning Percentage | |
| 2012 | League Stage (5th) | Chris Gayle (733 runs) | R Vinay Kumar (19 wickets) | 50.00 | |
| 2013 | League Stage (5th) | Chris Gayle (708 runs) | R Vinay Kumar (23 wickets) | 56.25 | |
| 2014 | League Stage (7th) | AB De Villiers (395 runs) | Varun Aaron (16 wickets) | 35.70 | |
| 2015 | Playoffs (3rd) | AB De Villiers (513 runs) | Yuzvendra Chahal (23 wickets) | 50.00 | |
| 2016 | Runners-up | Virat Kohli (973 runs) | Yuzvendra Chahal (20 wickets) | 57.14 | |
| 2017 | League Stage (8th) | Virat Kohli (308 runs) | Pawan Negi (16 wickets) | 21.42 | |
| 2018 | League Stage (6th) | Virat Kohli (530 runs) | Umesh Yadav (20 wickets) | 42.85 |