File photo of AB De Villiers and Virat Kohli in RCB colours.© BCCI
Legendary South Africa cricketer AB De VIlliers is no stranger to Royal Challengers Bangalore. De Villiers played for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for multiple years and he believes that bowling has been a sore point for quite some time. RCB have never reached the final of the competition and De Villiers said that although the batters have been inconsistent in the past, the bowling has been a persistent issue for the side. In a recent video, he explained that the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru is not helpful for bowlers and the lack of cohesion among the bowlers have not helped matters.
“It has been a well-known fact that RCB’s bowling has been an area of weakness over the years. Yes, the batters also made a mess at times, but you need to play as a team. You need to gel together and understand each other. More often than not, there has been this feeling of making silly mistakes, not getting the discipline right, and not doing the basics well under pressure. We know how difficult it is to bowl at the Chinnaswamy Stadium,” De Villiers said on his YouTube channel.
RCB released the trio of Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel and Josh Hazlewood ahead of the IPL 2024 mini-auction and although they completed the trade of Cameron Green, the franchise are left with a lot of work when it comes to completely revamping the bowling department.
“It is the area where I would be worried. Obviously, there is Mohammed Siraj there, Reece Topley, and some experience there, but if you see the released players list, they let go of Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, and Josh Hazlewood. Those three have won them a lot of games in the last couple of seasons, especially Hazlewood; he had just this way of controlling that bowling lineup,” he added.
Topics mentioned in this article