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IPL 2023: RCB needs to do some soul searching after loss to KKR

The team's think tank will need to seriously address if RCB hopes to keep alive its chances of qualifying for the knockout stages of the tournament

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Stand-in captain Virat Kohli said it was time to tighten the screws and show more professionalism after in-form Royal Challengers Bangalore suffered a second defeat at the hands of former two-time champion Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday.

Dropped catches and soft-dismissals were at the heart of RCB’s problems and something that the team’s think tank will need to seriously address if RCB hopes to keep alive its chances of qualifying for the knockout stages of the tournament.

KKR may have won the battle at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, but it still has a lot more to do to win the cricketing war that is the IPL.

Here are five talking points of the match.

Soft dismissals

Teams batting second have won more times than teams batting first but RCB’s efforts to mow down a total of 200 on a batting-friendly wicket were undone by a series of soft dismissals where high-profile players like Faf du Plessis (17 off 7) and Glenn Maxwell (5 off 4) threw away the wickets cheaply.

Virat Kohli (54 off 37) mixed aggression and caution but eventually holed out to Venkatesh Iyer at deep mid-wicket. This was not a bad shot by any means but a very good catch.

Meanwhile, Kohli claimed another slice of history when he became the first batsman to score 3000 runs at a single venue.

Something missing

When it has looked good, RCB has dazzled. But when things are not going its way, it has looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, not knowing what to do.

It was lost for ideas when it should have played to a plan after putting KKR in to bat first in conditions that it believed it could exploit.

It was not to be as Mohammed Siraj, David Willey, Shahbaz Ahmed, and Harshal Patel came in for a lot of punishment as it surrendered the advantage of winning the toss.

To the maximum

You could not help but applaud the confidence that the KKR batsmen exhibited at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Despite playing an away match, it made itself feel at home, and right from the go, openers Jason Roy (56 off 29) and Narayan Jagadeesan (27 off 29) got on top of the bowling.

Roy, in particular, was in menacing form as he silenced the vociferous home crowd when hammering Shahbaz for 25 runs off six deliveries.

It was an ominous final over of the powerplay that set the stage for KKR to post a daunting total of 200 runs.

Catches dropped

The Bangalore coaching staff will be pulling their hair out in a bid to solve the perplexing problem of dropped chances. Had those chances been taken, particularly the straightforward one Harshal Patel floored of the free-wheeling Nitish Rana (48 off 21), RCB may have been able to restrict KKR to a par total of 175 at a ground that is notorious for favouring bold batsmen.

Late order flourish

Every time RCB appeared to regain the momentum from KKR, it was denied. The home side did well to peg back the visitor when it removed Venkatesh Iyer (31 off 26) and Andre Russell (1 off 2) but more fireworks from the unbeaten Rinku Singh (18 off 10 and David Wiese (12 off 3) ruined all calculations and hopes of restricting KKR, which in the end, would cost it victory.

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