When Royal Challengers Bangalore began their IPL 2011 campaign, their fans would have pondered upon changing loyalties. Four games into the tournament, the previously top-ranked squad, slumped to three successive losses after a fairly convincing win against Kochi Tuskers in their opening tie.
As though not retaining local stars Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa was not a reason enough for fans to change their team of preference; RCB’s loses added to their supporters’ woes.
But thanks to a few significant changes in their line-up, the team has managed to turn things around in their favour. Nine games down, the team has five wins, three loses and a draw. Given their success in the past seasons, the resurgence RCB has managed to pull off has certainly helped retain their fan base.
With Chris Gayle being called mid-way through the first leg of the matches, the West Indian brought about a much-needed fire into the batting line-up, which depended mostly on Virat Kohli or AB de Villiers as Tillakaratne Dilshan is yet to score big runs.
On Sunday, when RCB meet their opening game opponents Kochi Tuskers on their home soil at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the Daniel Vettori-led squad will bank on their batting line-up which has held their sway in the recent games. Whether it is chasing or piling on a match-winning total, the team has proved its mettle.
RCB bowling, too, has been better than the initial expectations. At start, it was opined that apart from Zaheer Khan, the bowling attack was not as good as the previous team which had the likes of Dale Steyn, Praveen Kumar, Anil Kumble and Jacques Kallis. However, local lads S Arvind and Abhimanyu Mithun have come good in the previous games. Star of the Friday evening, Gayle taking three wickets is a bonus.
Currently placed at No 4 in the points table, RCB have strengthened their chances of making it to the playoffs.
On Sunday, it will be interesting to see whether the Mahela Jayawardane-led side will avenge their opening game loss to RCB and hold on to their chances of a playoff berth. For now, Kochi are sixth in the table having played 10 games with five wins.
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