(Cricket news) Royal Challengers Bangalore went out of the Indian Premier League in the eliminator as a repeat of last year. This year Bangalore had qualified for the playoffs with 9 victories in 14 matches, they had 18 points and looked like they would not fall under pressure, but it was the same story for the team which somehow always ends up coming close to the victory line.

Harshal Patel has been the torchbearer this season, he has equalled Dwayne Bravo’s record of 32 wickets in a single edition of the league. Harshal had the chance of breaking the record if Bangalore had won the match but he has a nine wicket lead over Avesh Khan and Harshal still has a high chance of winning the purple cap. Yuzvendra Chahal came in second in the team with 18 wickets as the bowlers were also in form but couldn't do much in the last match as it was a tough score to defend.

Mohammad Siraj was clocking speeds around 147 km/ hour as he was the fastest bowler for the team this season. Siraj, Harshal and Chahal had an economy under five in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders as Siraj and Harshal had the exact identical numbers in their spell. Both bowled 10 dot balls, took two wickets for 19 runs and Chahal took two for 16. Harshal took the wickets of the openers, Chahal took the next two and Siraj continued the trend. 

Glenn Maxwell led with the bat for the team with 6 fifties which is the joint highest along with KL Rahul. Maxwell scored over 513 runs in fifteen matches and was followed by Devdutt Padikkal who scored 411 runs in fourteen matches along with captain Virat Kohli who scored 405 runs. Kohli top scored in his final match as captain and was the only one from both the teams to score more than 30 runs in the match. AB De Villers could not turn things around this time as he scored 313 runs in fifteen matches with two fifties and Dan Christian had a forgettable season with the team as he took 4 wickets in nine matches with an economy rate of 9.30. 

Bangalore had four victories in the second phase at UAE and five victories at India. They had started their season with four consecutive victories and will keep wondering why they faltered at the last stage as they are yet to win a title. The team performed well this season, in the end they couldn't do what they did in the previous fourteen matches and will need to rectify it in the coming seasons. 

Also read: Qualifiers and Eliminators are terms coined to create more pressure, says Kohli