Everything you need to know about RCB – IPL 2024

RCB

The Indian Premier League’s newest season is around the corner and they are all set to host the 17th season of the festival league. The new season will be witnessing a lot of twists, turns, tension, and suspense while also featuring two additional franchises i.e. Ahmedabad and Lucknow. If you are new to IPL or an enthusiast who wants to delve into the details about the franchises, you have slid into the right place. Here we will be discussing the IPL veterans, the RCB. An overview of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s history, squad, news, retentions, and fixtures will be provided below.

Royal Challengers Bangalore – An Overview

 

Royal Challengers Bangalore commonly known as RCB is an Indian Premier League franchise based in Bangalore, Karnataka. RCB was founded in 2008 by a liquor company called United Spirits and was later named after their liquor brand ‘Royal Challenge.’ The franchise plays their home matches at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The unique thing about the franchise is that despite appearing in the finals three times, they have never won the title from 2008 to 2023.

They were tagged as underachievers because of the lack of success despite having an ocean of talent in the team. Royal Challengers Bangalore holds the record of the highest and the lowest scorers of the Indian Premier League (263/5 and 49 respectively). 8 different franchises were put up for auction in Mumbai on 20 February 2008. Vijay Mallya purchased the franchise in the auction paying 111.6 million dollars for it. This was also the second-highest bid for a team during the auction. Royal Challengers Bangalore’s brand value was quoted up to Rs 595 crores in 2019 according to a survey.

A brief season review of RCB in IPL

 

Legendary Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid became the icon player for the Royal Challengers Bangalore ahead of the 2008 player auction. The franchise grabbed several legendary international players such as Jacques Kallis, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Dale Steyn, Mark Boucher, and Cameron White. Virat Kohli, Misbah-Ul-Haq, and Ross Taylor were signed in the second round of the auction. In the inaugural season, the team managed to win only 4 matches out of the 14 matches they had played finishing seventh in the table of eight teams. Rahul Dravid was the only player who managed to score more than 300 runs in the entire team. They even had to substitute their costliest overseas player Jack Kallis for a few games due to his dull form.

2009, during the player auction, RCB purchased Kevin Pietersen for a record sum of 1.55 million dollars making him the costliest player of that season along with his English teammate Andrew Flintoff who was purchased by Chennai Super Kings for the same amount. They also traded Robin Uthappa and Zaheer Khan with Mumbai Indians for local batsman Manish Pandey from them.

The Royal Challengers Bangalore finished the season with seven wins from 14 matches under the captaincy of Anil Kumble in 2010. They were defeated in the semi-finals by Mumbai Indians by 35 runs. They also qualified for the 2010 Champions League T20. Kumble then retired from his position as the skipper after the year.

In 2011, the Royal Challengers Bangalore retained only one of its players, Virat Kohli, leaving the rest of the players in the auction pool. RCB bought back their former spearhead Zaheer Khan for 900000 dollars along with the Sri Lankan, Tilakaratne Dilshan for 650000 dollars, AB de Villiers for 1.1 million dollars, Chris Gayle, the West Indian hard hitter, and Daniel Vettori for 550000 dollars. These were some of the main buys of the franchise in the season. Chennai Super Kings had beaten RCB in the 1st qualifiers at Mumbai. Mumbai Indians were the opponents for RCB in the 2nd qualifiers in Chennai. RCB won the match and qualified for the finals against Chennai. CSK posted a huge total of 205/5 making RCB weak on their knees. RCB lost the final by 58 runs and they were the runner-ups of that season of the Indian Premier League.

While a groin injury made RCB’s Talisman Chris Gayle sit out of the tournament in the initial stages of the 2012 season, they had purchased the contracts of Johan Van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar, and Nuwan Pradeep. RCB had bought only Vinay Kumar for 1 million dollars and former Chennai spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for 220200 dollars. A failure in batting led their way out of the 2012 season of the Indian Premier League. Though Chris Gayle had suffered from injuries initially, he went on to become the highest scorer of the tournament for the second year in a row, managing to score 733 runs at a rate of 61.08 with 7 half-centuries and 1 century at a strike rate of 160.74. Their purchase of that year, Vinay Kumar was the 5th highest wicket-taker of the tournament with his 19 wickets from 17 matches.

The Royal Challengers Bangalore kicked off the 2013 season with 6 consecutive wins at their home. Though they had a great start, they eventually started losing the away matches. RCB could not qualify for the playoffs as they were on par with the points of Sunrisers Hyderabad and Hyderabad had managed to win the match against Kolkata by 5 wickets and that decided the fate of RCB by pushing them out of the 2013 campaign.

In 2014, Virat Kohli was made the skipper of the franchise as both he and AB de Villiers were retained before the auction. RCB had brought in some pace attack into the team as they had bought Albie Morkel and Mitchell Starc. They had bought Yuvraj Singh for a record price of Rs 14 crores.

RCB started the season 2015 with a win against KKR at Eden Garden with the support of Chris Gayle who scored 96 runs in the game. They suffered 3 losses after that against SRH, MI, and CSK. They finished in the third position in the league stage and faced Rajasthan Royals in the knockouts. They had won the match and earned a spot for themselves in qualifier 2. Eventually, they were shown a way out of the league by Chennai Super Kings in Qualifier 2 ending their league title dreams.

In 2016, Royal Challengers Bangalore retained most of their players from the previous season and purchased Shane Watson for Rs 9.6 crores, Kane Richardson, and Stuart Binny Rs 2 crores each, and Samuel Badree and Travis Head for Rs 50 lakhs each. They started their season with a blast from AB de Villiers and skipper Virat Kohli against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chinnaswamy Stadium to win the first match with ease. Like in the previous seasons, their form began to deteriorate then. They had managed to win only one match out of the next 5 matches. RCB played against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the finals of that season but lost a well-fought match by 8 runs to end up as the runner ups in the ninth edition of the Indian Premier League.

RCB’s star bowlers Yuzvendra Chahal and Shane Watson ended the season as the second and the third on the list for most wickets respectively.

Like in the previous season, Royal Challengers Bangalore had retained most of the existing players in the 2017 season of the Indian Premier League as well. They bought Tymal Mills for Rs 12 crores, Aniket Chaudhary for Rs 2 crores, Pawan Negi for Rs 1 crore, and Billy Stanlake for Rs 30 Lakhs. The spearhead of the pace bowling, Mitchell Starc was dropped out of the season to prepare for the Champions Trophy. Skipper Virat Kohli and Ab de Villiers did not play the initial matches due to respective injuries. They started with a loss against Sunrisers Hyderabad by 35 runs. They had a miserable season yet they finished on a high note after the win against Delhi Daredevils by 10 runs in Delhi. This was the season where they made low scores like 49 all-out against Kolkata Knight Riders, 96/9 against Rising Pune Supergiants, and 119 all-out versus Kings XI Punjab.

2018 was not the season for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Their standing on the point table was very low as they stood at 6th position and were not able to qualify for the playoffs. In 2019, they had spent Rs 16.4 crores to buy nine players. Unfortunately, even with such a strong squad, they ended up in the bottom part of the table for the second time. RCB remains as one of the original teams of IPL which haven’t won the trophy yet, among Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Capitals.

The Royal Challengers Bangalore released most of their players before the start of 2020 IPL. They purchased Aaron Finch for Rs 4 crores, Pavan Deshpande for Rs 20 lakhs, Chris Morris for Rs 10 crores, Joshua Philippe for Rs 20 lakhs, Kane Richardson for Rs 4 crores, Dale Steyn for Rs 2 crores, Shahbaz Ahamad for Rs 20 Lakh, and Isuru Udana for Rs 50 Lakh.

Royal Challengers Bangalore – Retained players

 

Virat Kohli had made a statement earlier as he will step down as the captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore and has claimed that he will be continuing in the franchise. The statement confirms that he is the first player to be retained by RCB for a purse value of Rs 15 crores ahead of the IPL mega auction.

Glenn Maxwell is the next player to be retained by the team after Kohli for Rs 11 crores considering the impressive performance he had shown in the previous season where he had scored 513 runs including 6 half-centuries at a strike rate of 144.10. Followed by Maxwell, they had retained the seamer Mohammed Siraj for Rs 7 crores.

Virat Kohli – Rs 15 crores

Glenn Maxwell – Rs 11 crores

Mohammed Siraj – Rs 7 crores

Royal Challengers Bangalore – Rivalries

 

Against Kolkata Knight Riders

The Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders is a match made in heaven. They have dominated the IPL with their intense rivalry dominated by many records. The war between them had started in the first season of the Indian Premier League.

Things have changed over the years as KKR won the IPL title twice and whenever the two giants locked horns, it became memorable for the fans of each side. They have played a total of 27 matches together and KKR has the upper hand against RCB by winning 14 of them, leaving RCB with 13 wins.

Against Chennai Super Kings

The rivalry between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings arises from a much deeper issue that is, the Kaveri River water dispute between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Often the head-to-head matches are also called the Kaveri Derby or the South Indian Derby. The Super Kings had nabbed the title away from the Royal Challengers in the final match of IPL 2011, which is also the only time that they have met in a final.

Against Sunrisers Hyderabad

The rivalry between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad is very notable among the fans. Hyderabad has always dominated Bangalore in intense rivalry matches. They have met two times in the finals (2009 and 2016) and Hyderabad had won both the finals. They met again in the IPL 2020 and Kane Williamson knocked RCB out of the league by scoring a fifty.

RCB – IPL 2022 squad

 

Player                                Role                      Auction price                    Nation

 Virat Kohli                        Batsman                INR 15 CR (Retained)       India

 Suyash Prabhudessai     Batsman                INR 30 LKS                          India

Faf du Plessis                   Batsman                INR 7 CR                             South Africa

Dinesh karthik                  WK-Batsman        INR 5.50 CR                        India

Anuj Rawat                       WK-Batsman        INR 3.40 CR                        India

Finn Allen                          WK-Batsman        INR 80 LKS                          New Zealand

Luvnith Sisodia                 WK-Batsman        INR 20 LKS                          India

Mohammed Siraj             Bowler                   INR 7 CR (Retained)          India

Karn Sharma                    Bowler                    INR 50 LKS                         India

Jason Behrendorff           Bowler                    INR 75 LKS                         Australia

Siddarth Kaul                   Bowler                    INR 75 LKS                         India

Chama Milind                  Bowler                    INR 25 LKS                         India

Josh Hazlewood              Bowler                     INR 7.75 CR                       Australia

Harshal Patel                   Bowler                    INR 10.7 CR                        India

Glenn Maxwell               All-rounder              INR 11 CR (Retained)         Australia

David Willey                   All-rounder              INR 2 CR                               England

Mahipal Lomror            All-rounder              INR 95 LKS                            India

Sherfane Rutherford    All-rounder               INR 1 CR                               West Indies

Aneeshwar Gautham   All-rounder              INR 20 LKS                            India

Shahbaz Ahmed            All-rounder              INR 2.40 CR                          India

Wanindu Hasaranga    All-rounder              INR 10.75 CR                        Sri Lanka