IPL 2018: RCB keen to overcome death bowling woes

The day after its despairing loss to Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore’s official Twitter account ran a poll. “Will the real death bowling specialist please stand up?” it said in the post, asking fans to pick the side’s best options. It was an exercise in fan engagement, but that question may very well have been asked on behalf of the team.

RCB failed to defend a total of 205 on Wednesday, conceding 100 runs inside the last seven overs. It was “criminal” to bleed runs like that, Virat Kohli said afterwards. “The way we bowled is just not acceptable.” The RCB captain will urgently seek a remedy as his side prepares to face Kolkata Knight Riders at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Sunday.

On the bench, there is the experienced Tim Southee who joined the squad just over a week ago and is yet to feature this season. At least he can do no worse than compatriot Corey Anderson, who leaked 58 runs from his 3.4 overs against CSK.

Poor record

Until March this year, Anderson had not played any cricket for nearly eight months due to a stress fracture in his back. He has a career economy rate in excess of nine in all T20 cricket. Entrusting him with the task of bowling to a rampaging M.S. Dhoni in the dying stages of the game was perhaps not the wisest move, but Kohli had few other choices.

Also available is Chris Woakes who was left out of the side against CSK after having played the first five matches; the Englishman has not been entirely frugal but, at least, offers a measure of control.

With only two wins on the board, RCB is in desperate need of settling on a reliable bowling combination if it is to have any hope of advancing to the playoffs. “In 2015 and 2016, we bounced back after difficult starts to the season,” Yuzvendra Chahal said here on Saturday. “Our thinking is, ‘Let’s forget about the six matches; we have eight left.’”

In KKR, RCB meets a side with troubles of its own. Dinesh Karthik’s men have lost two on the bounce, and won only three games out of seven. The team arrives fresh off a 55-run thrashing at the hands of Delhi Daredevils.

KKR’s bowlers were carted around the Ferozeshah Kotla while the batting — with the exception of Andre Russell — has struggled for consistency all season. “We were poor in all three departments,” Karthik said later. “We didn’t turn up for the match.”

KKR cannot afford many more days like that; neither can RCB.

Teams (from):

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), Quinton de Kock, Brendon McCullum, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Colin de Grandhomme, Moeen Ali, Pawan Negi, Mohammed Siraj, Corey Anderson, Parthiv Patel, Tim Southee.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (captain), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill, Ishank Jaggi, Nitish Rana, Vinay Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Tom Curran.

Match starts at 8 p.m.