Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has questioned whether Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is a star-studded lineup ahead of IPL 2024. RCB had Anuj Rawat playing for them in the middle order and he is quite unknown as who scored only 91 runs. with a strike rate of 128.16 in seven IPL innings. The Bengaluru-based franchise was forced to add him to the playing XI last season because Rajat Patidar was injured and Dinesh Karthik had a poor run with the bat.
Irfan Pathan feels that RCB will once again rely heavily on the trio of Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell for runs as he feels that the bowling is not as strong as it used to be and may be a liability for them during the season. . Royal Challengers Bangalore are yet to have any trophies after being in the league since the beginning. They have reached the final three times; 2009, 2011 and 2016 respectively.
“Of course, because the bowling is not as strong as it used to be, even though they still haven’t won the tournament in so many years. So batting will be the key, how they start and also how they play in the mid overs. You have to pay attention to that. We always talk about how they are a team of batting superstars. However, if Anuj Rawat plays in the middle, is it really a superstar team? So it wasn’t like that,” the former India all-rounder added.
Irfan Pathan also acknowledged that the acquisition of Cameron Green would strengthen the batting as the all-rounder has great batting skills and also scored a century against Sunrisers Hyderabad while playing for Mumbai Indians in the last season of the IPL. He is an Australian fast bowling all-rounder and can be a useful asset for RCB in the mid overs given his hitting prowess.
RCB remains a weak bowling team and that can be a big blow to the franchise.
Royal Challengers Bangalore could not create a strong bowling team in the auction as they bought players like Tom Curran, Alzarri Joseph and Yash Dayal and bowling still seems a worrying factor for the franchise. The batting prowess can be understood with the likes of Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell, and with the return of Rajat Patidar, the middle-order would have good strength. They went all out for Pat Cummins for Rs 20.25 crore at the auctions but Sunrisers Hyderabad went a step further and poached the Australian skipper for Rs 20.50 crore.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 is expected to begin during the third week of March and is likely to conclude in the last week of May and RCB hopes to win its first IPL title this season and end its 17-year run. wait for the title. However, the youngsters will have to perform if RCB wants to challenge for the title. The Bengaluru-based franchise came close to winning the title three times but somehow failed to clear the final barrier on all three occasions.