(Football news) New team name, new season, same old issues. Right now in IPL 2024, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have only managed one victory after four games. There are superstars in the top quarter of their lineup, but most of them haven’t hit yet, which has put a lot of pressure on the players who aren’t quite superstars but still contribute significantly to their batting average. RCB, that’s how the bowling has been.
The top two players on the Rajasthan Royals’ roster are also not exactly performing at their best, but their performance hasn’t suffered as they have won their first three games. In the event that Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal start scoring runs, how good could the Royals be?
Equally, though, it may take just one of Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell and Cameron Green to find form for RCB’s campaign to spark to life. It’s still early days in IPL 2024, and you only have to go back to last season to know that a good start is only a start. Royals began with four wins in their first five games, and RCB with two wins in five, but by the end of the league stage both teams had the same points and similar net run rates.
There’s a long way to go, then, but RCB will know that a turnaround, if there is to be one, will need to begin soon. Sandeep Sharma was sidelined with a niggle during the Royals’ most recent away game in Mumbai.
Expect Nandre Burger to slot back into the Impact Player rotation alongside players like Rovman Powell and Shubham Dube if he’s healthy again. Instead of relying just on the toss, the Royals prefer to use their substitute based on the state of the game. Whenever feasible, they would prefer to have six full-time bowling choices.
Anuj Rawat has scored 25 runs off of 48 balls in each of his following three innings after recording an outstanding 25-ball 48 in the season’s opening game in Chennai. There’s a potential that on Saturday, RCB will bench him and give Dinesh Karthik the starting job again.
In place of using him as an impact player, they could be able to start Mahipal Lomror and give Manoj Bhandage, an all-rounder, or middle-order batsman Suyash Prabhudessai a chance of playing. Although RCB would find it difficult to squeeze Will Jacks in unless they exclude their big-money trade acquisition Cameron Green, there may be an incentive to try.
He has one of the most specialised batting roles in the IPL, to the extent that R Ashwin routinely bats ahead of him if Royals feel the ideal entry point for their death-overs hitter hasn’t yet arrived. Consequently, IPL 2024 has seen very little of Shimron Hetmyer so far.
He’s batted only twice in their first three games, and one of his innings was an unbeaten 14 off seven balls. And when Royals bring in a bowler as Impact sub, it’s usually Hetmyer who makes way. If he makes an appearance in his designated role on Saturday, he’ll be up against an RCB attack that has an economy rate of 11.30 in the death overs this season, while picking up just four wickets in that phase in four games.
For RCB, Dinesh Karthik plays a similar role to Hetmyer, his entry point is often delayed so he can bat at the death. Royals are aware of this, and also of Karthik’s preference for batting against pace. Karthik is particularly averse to batting against legspin, and doesn’t have a great record against Yuzvendra Chahal. In all their IPL meetings, Chahal has bowled 51 balls to Karthik and conceded only 47 runs while dismissing him three times.
Chahal is happy to bowl at the death, and Royals are happy to keep two of his overs for that phase whenever they’re up against RCB and Karthik. Chahal bowled the 17th and 19th overs in both meetings between these sides last season, picking up 2 for 11 in that mini-spell in Bengaluru, where he got to bowl to Karthik, and 0 for 22 in Jaipur, where he didn’t.
