Back from the dead, RCB faces uphill road to their maiden IPL title

Remarkable as Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s late resurgence has been, it’s worth remembering that there is still plenty of work ahead of them as they eye their maiden Indian Premier League title.

When IPL 2024 kicked off on March 22, at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai where RCB locked horns with defending champions Chennai Super Kings, the first objective of each of the ten franchises was to finish in the top four and qualify for the playoffs. Midway through the league phase, however, Faf du Plessis’ men looked out for the count. A solitary victory in their first seven outings confined them to the cellar of the points table and things took a grimmer turn in their following fixture as they went down to Kolkata Knight Riders by one run.

Reigniting campaign

They say that heavy defeats are easier to digest because of the realisation that one has been comprehensively outplayed. To lose by the thinnest of margins, especially with their future in the competition hanging by the slenderest of threads, could so easily have broken RCB’s spirit and resolve. It was now seven losses in eight matches; RCB’s future was no longer in their own hands. Even if they won their remaining six games – a tall order given they were one from eight – they needed a host of other results to go their way if they were to sneak into the playoffs on net run-rate.

In a near-miraculous turn of events, that’s precisely what transpired. Instead of allowing themselves to moan and complain at the unfairness of it all, RCB used the KKR setback as a springboard to the playoffs. Even during their dismal run of losses, the team didn’t lose heart. The players knew they weren’t as bad as the results might have indicated, though they were also acutely aware that knowledge alone wouldn’t suffice. For them to turn the corner, they believed, they needed one result to go their way, for one win to reignite their campaign.

Extraordinary chase

That victory came against an unlikely outfit. At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, Sunrisers Hyderabad had amassed the highest total in IPL history, 287 for three, earlier in the season. At the time, few paid too much attention to the fact that RCB had replied with 262, an extraordinary chase that only left them 25 short when they ran out of time. It was these kinds of performances that kept the flame flying in the RCB dugout; they found silver linings in defeats, not because they were clutching at straws but because of their conviction that more than the other teams, they were beating themselves.

During the first half of a league campaign of two stark contrasts, RCB’s batting went nowhere with the exception of Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik, their bowling was ragged, ineffective and toothless – neither could they pick up wickets, nor could they check the flow of runs. Out of sheer frustration, du Plessis admitted at a post-match press conference that the lack of bite in the bowling meant the batsmen were under pressure to post 200 in every innings. Perhaps, Mohammed Siraj and Co. took offence to that public ticking off, because they rose like a Phoenix from the ashes, providing the cutting edge that complemented a rejuvenated batting line-up which wasn’t about Kohli alone anymore.

Victory at Uppal in the return fixture against SRH towards the end of April – only RCB’s second in nine tries this season – galvanised a tremendous charge that netted them five victories on the bounce when they squared off against CSK in their final league clash, back at the Chinnaswamy, on Saturday night. One of the more celebrated rivalries in the tournament, it is, in reality, a non-rivalry – until last weekend, CSK had won 20 of the 32 face-offs between the teams. But history is in the past, isn’t it? That’s what du Plessis and his band of warriors believed, as they embarked on one final mission characterised by passion and hunger and ambition and drive which was spearheaded, expectedly, by Kohli.

RCB’s talisman

Du Plessis may be the captain, but it’s Kohli that is RCB’s talisman. A Kohli-cam is very much a part of the viewing experience even though he doesn’t hold any official leadership position either at his franchise or with the national team, and it vividly captured Kohli’s emotions as he celebrated with typical gusto, geed up the crowd like only he can, engaged in wild sendoffs to the opposition batsmen and fielded as if there was no tomorrow. After all, if RCB didn’t win, there truly would be no tomorrow – at least not in this edition.

Riding on the energy of their main man, RCB posted 218 though in effect, that tally shrunk to 200; that’s what they had to restrict CSK to if they were to sneak in as the fourth team into the playoffs. They did so with aplomb, weathering a late charge from old foes Ravindra Jadeja and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Six in a row, first goal realised, against all odds. What a story!

Challenges ahead

For the story to translate into a fairytale, RCB must win three more games, starting with Wednesday’s Eliminator against Rajasthan Royals in Ahmedabad. Just to put things in perspective, since the playoffs were introduced in 2011, only once has a team that played in the Eliminator gone on to be crowned champions – Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016. RCB might say they have played six knockout games merely heading into the Eliminator and they won’t be wrong, but the pressures of actual knockout ties are something else.

That said, the force is with the three-time finalists. Where RCB have gone from strength to strength, eking out performances from a plethora of personnel, their Eliminator opponents have dramatically gone in the other direction. Sanju Samson’s men have just one point from their last five games and will be without England white-ball captain Jos Buttler for the business end of the competition. Where RCB’s confidence is sky high, RR find themselves in the same position as their opponents did a month back. Samson needs to lead from the front, like du Plessis has done, and inspire his colleagues, especially a crack bowling attack full of international stars, to rediscover the mojo that brought them eight wins in their first nine games. Because he knows, as well as anyone else, that give an inch, and this RCB Class of ’24 will take a mile. At the very least.