In the Indian Premier League (IPL), batsmen have always been in the spotlight, but history has proved that teams having a strong bowling unit have performed well in the tournament. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) has always done a fantastic batting line up, but never won the IPL. Reason - He never bowled superb bowling to complement batting.
The initial indications are that the story will not be different this year.
Against Mumbai Indians, the RCB bowlers scored 52 runs in the Powerplay - on an economy of 8.67. He hit eight fours and two sixes in the first six overs.
Each of the six overs had at least one hit on the fence or. Umesh Yadav scored 16 runs in 2 overs, Navdeep Saini made 25 in 3 and Mohammad Siraj took 1 for 11 in the Powerplay. Not only that, he was also unable to ban the Mumbai Indians batsmen, they could also make 54 runs with Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock.
In the last three seasons of the tournament, RCB's third worst economy rate (8.29) is among the powerplays (after Delhi Capitol and Kolkata Knight Riders) among all IPL teams.
Siraj's Powerplay-Economy rate is 10.56, which is too much for a bowler who has played 19 IPL matches.
The story was not very different in the middle overs (7-16 overs). Although RCB managed to take 5 wickets, courtesy Yuswendra Chahal, who scored 4 runs, did not stop the run flow in these 10 overs too.
MI scored a total of 93 runs in this phase. Chahal, who otherwise had a good economy rate of 7.70 in his IPL career, was expensive at night because Yuvraj Singh made three consecutive sixes, taking 20 runs in an over.
Moin Ali scored 13 runs in the only over bowled in the match, and Colin de Grandhaom gave 27 runs in 3 overs.
Yadav bowled superb in the 17th over with only 2 runs, other RCB bowlers were bowled for 40 in the last 3. Siraj was given 10 and 15 runs in the 18th and 20th over, while Saini got 15 runs in the 19th over. Siraj was also a poor option for death. His career economy rate at this stage is 10.29.
RCB is the worst team in terms of leaking runs. He has scored 47.25 in 5 overs in the last three seasons.
MI was motivated for Hardy Pandya Cameo in 187 for 8 courtesy, which proved to be very much for RCB despite a great effort by AB De Villiers. When RCB bowled first in the last three seasons, then the average runs were 165.42. Only Delhi Capitol gave 170.43 runs while batting second.
Barring Yadav (26 runs in his 4 overs), none of the other RCB bowlers had an economy rate of Under-9. In innings 17 fours and 9 sixes were studded - out of 187 runs, 122 runs were in the 4th over or 6s.
Overall, the RCB has an economy rate of 8.08 in IPL - the second worst after Kings XI Punjab - 8.19. The third worst Delhi Capitol (8.03) in this list Interestingly, these three franchisees have the worst bowling average in IPL history too.
It can not be a coincidence that none of them have taken the IPL trophy.
