How the Royal Challengers Bangalore have miscalculated over the years
From contenders in the early years to bottom feeders in recent seasons - a look at how things have gone wrong for the team
It's been that sort of run over the last few seasons for the Royal Challengers Bangalore • BCCI
RCB's first ever IPL squad was the last time they came close to being a truly representative team for Bangalore and Karnataka, complete with a local captain and coach. That happened to be the only positive for anyone in their fan base; because, while RCB had several big cricketing names in that squad, with experience and success in ODI cricket, you could have counted the T20 specialists on your fingers. Though T20 cricket itself hadn't fully evolved by 2008, one must wonder what the plan was with Rahul Dravid, Wasim Jaffer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Jacques Kallis as the top order. Dravid and Kallis did grow into important IPL players over the next few years, but all of them together as Plan A? It was never going to work.
...was a good idea. If it was a batting innings. In 2014.
The year after they were runners-up, RCB spent Rs 12 crore (about US$1,650,000) to acquire English fast bowler Tymal Mills, who was rising quickly as a T20 freelancer at the time. While the choice itself wasn't too bad, the money spent on him turned out to be an extravagance. This wasn't entirely RCB's fault - a new pitch at the Chinnaswamy Stadium proved so spinner-friendly that even Virat Kohli managed only 308 runs all season, after having made 973 in 2016. He was the only one to breach 300 runs in the season in a line-up that included Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson and Kedar Jadhav. Mills played only five games all season.
In the 2016 season, Kohli made a record four centuries and opened the batting during each of those innings. It was, arguably, RCB's strongest batting line-up ever and showed that Kohli's best batting position in the IPL is as an opener. All five of his centuries for RCB have come when he opened, and his average and strike rate when opening are vastly superior to his good returns at No. 3.
RCB's most successful phase came between 2009 and 2014: they made two IPL finals, finished third in 2010, and were runners-up in the Champions League T20. All of that happened under the leadership of Ray Jennings as coach, with Anil Kumble and Daniel Vettori as captains. Vettori succeeded Jennings as coach and had a sustained run as well, keeping the job till 2018. Since then, the only constant in the leadership has been Kohli. At the start of this season, RCB's head coach will be Simon Katich, their third in as many seasons. Only Kings XI Punjab have changed coaches more often.
RCB's auction strategy generally has been to overspend on some players and leave little with which to achieve balance in the rest of the squad. The signing of Yuvraj Singh for Rs 14 crore in the 2014 auction, in what was then the record for the highest auction price (before Delhi Daredevils broke it for the same player the next year) was an example. In 2015, they fought the Daredevils all the way up to the Rs 16 crore mark for Singh again before losing out on the new record bid. They then splurged on Dinesh Karthik - Rs 10.5 crore. It remains one of the worst signings in IPL history, as Karthik made 141 runs in 16 matches before he was released.
Varun Shetty is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo