IPL 2023, RCB vs LSG: Royal Challengers Bangalore Surrender Middle-Over Duel, End Up Losers

New Delhi: Not one Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the packed Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Monday night would have thought, after the first inning, that their side would lose this one. By the end of the Lucknow Super Giants’ (LSG) Power Play, the party was well and truly on around the stands – this one is in the bag. But by the time the match ended, the party had been rudely halted and the fans packed off, frustrated and more so, mystified as to how their favourite side could contrive to lose a match, they ruled till about 26 overs. But for them, this is nothing new. RCB has often been at the receiving end, completely belying their star parade of players.

It would be easy to say that the RCB bowlers lost the match for them. To an extent, they did let go of the advantage after an excellent beginning. With the LSG top-order floundering, after Mohammed Siraj struck in his first over and then Wayne Parnell was in action, twice, RCB should have been able to seal off the opponents.

But that did not happen. While Siraj was exception with his economy of 5.5 and David Willey did enough to keep it tight, the rest were carted around viciously, first by Marcus Stoinis and then with that incredible assault from Nicholas Pooran.

Parnell went for 10.25 runs per over, Harshal Patel gave away 12 runs an over and impact player Karn Sharma was hammered for 48 runs from three overs. Shahbaz Ahmed’s one over cost him 15 runs.

It was a most amazing batting performance, especially since LSG were at 37/3 after the Power Play and with skipper KL Rahul simply not in the game, things looked bleak. Then it all turned.

But one also needs to look at the RCB batting effort. One wonders if either skipper Faf du Plessis or Virat Kohli could have gone even faster in their run-scoring. It seems unfair that they would be asked to do anything more than what they did, but if you compare the middle-over run-scoring, the difference is stark.

From overs seven to 15, RCB scored 81 runs for the loss of one wicket, at an average of nine runs an over, with three boundaries and five sixes. By contrast, LSG scored 134/2, averaging 14.9 runs per over with 10 boundaries and 11 sixes. This is where the match was decided.

By the time the last lot of overs came up, the difference was not great, but it didn’t need to be – the job had almost been done.

The last-overs theatrics notwithstanding, RCB lost control of the match from the seventh over of the LSG inning and never wrestled it back, even after Stoinis or Pooran were dismissed. That it all boiled down to two fumbles off the last ball to enable LSG win just added to the drama.

This was the second time running that the RCB bowling was clattered for over 200 runs, the last coming in against Kolkata Knight Riders, a match the former lost by 81 runs. The brains trust for the Bengaluru franchise will be left wondering what needs to be done to alter the course of things, coming after a fine win over Mumbai Indians in their first match.

There’s a lot to look at, but not much of it is pretty for RCB. A change in personnel is almost inevitable for the fringe players, but a change of approach is needed from all.