A little over halfway into the 10th season of the IPL, both Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Lions have won just two games apiece while losing five each
Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s captain Virat Kohli (left) and teammate AB de Villiers during their IPL-10 match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday. Pic/AFP
Bangalore: A little over halfway into the 10th season of the IPL, both Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Lions have won just two games apiece while losing five each. RCB, who host Gujarat tonight at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, are ahead by a single point and are two places above the Lions on the table but that's only because their eighth match was a non-starter due to incessant rains on Tuesday night and they thus gained a point.
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For sure these are strange times. For here are two teams known for their batting prowess, with the respective top threes good enough to fit into any international side even, and yet both are languishing in a format made for the batsmen. It just shows that names alone don't make for runs and merely turning up at the ground doesn't count for anything.
Big three skip nets
Actually none of RCB's big three, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle, all of whom failed in 'that' game in Kolkata, turned up at the nets last evening, preferring time away from the field as a possible cure to the team's and their own batting woes. Each of them have fired at least once each but as they say, it takes at least two to tango and thus the need for at least two of them to perform in the same game.
Headache for Lions
Somewhat different is the woes with the Lions. Having to pick two or three from Brendon McCullum, Jason Roy, Aaron Finch and Dwayne Smith to bat alongside skipper Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik means they are spoilt for choice. But while the runs have come for them as a team - they have only one score below 160 thus far - the wins haven't. And that's what matters, right? The usual explanation is that teams are still finding the right balance as far as the playing XI is concerned but that cannot hold true at this stage, can it? Gujarat must, of course, look to strengthen their bowling (if there is such a thing in T20 cricket), as they have failed to defend as healthy a total as 183 on one occasion, while they have also conceded the season's highest total, 213, ironically to RCB, the team they are up against tonight.
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