Royal Challengers' fifth bowler problem

By Aashish Calla, India

Over the last two matches that the Royal Challengers Bangalore have played in IPL 2012, and lost, it has become clear that despite having four international bowlers (and good ones at that) in their playing XI, it's the fifth bowler that has lost them both games. Look at these stats below: Vs Chennai Super Kings: Fifth bowler – Virat Kohli + Raju Bhatkal, gave away 71 runs in four overs, wicket-less. Vs Rajasthan Royals: Fifth bowler – S Aravind + Chris Gayle, gave away 69 runs in four overs, wicket-less. That's an average of 17.75 and 17.25 runs per over, respectively, which, as Daniel Vettori also said, is "unacceptable".

The other bowlers in the Royals game gave away 121 runs in 16 overs, which is an economy-rate of less than eight, quite acceptable. Going by this, Royals would have ended up scoring slightly less than 160 had the fifth bowler maintained a similar RPO. But the fact that they leaked 69 runs there meant that the score sky-rocketed to 195, which in the end proved unassailable. It was a similar situation with the Super Kings game.

Two good, or even average, performances by their "fifth bowler" could have meant Royal Challengers having three wins in four games, and probably No. 1 in the points table, but what has happened is, they've now lost three out of four, and are second last on the table. The fifth bowler will have to start making a more telling impact on the game (in Royal Challengers’ favor, that is), if the team is to clinch tight games from now on. Else, it'll be up to the rampaging Jamaican once again to win matches on his own, and if he mis-fires, like he has done so far in IPL 2012, the Royal Challengers can kiss their chances of qualifying for the play-offs goodbye.