Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have lost six straight games in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and their chances of qualifying for the playoffs are almost over considering they can’t win their remaining eight games.
Despite possessing the likes of Kohli, AB de Villiers, Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Yuzvendra Chahal, Tim Southee and many other superstar players in the team, the Bengaluru franchise has struggled for consistency this season.
Dejected with six straight defeats in IPL-12, De Villiers came up to reveal the real reason behind RCB’s ordinary show in the tournament. The former South Africa skipper had one specific area to highlight – the fielding department.
In his column for Times of India, De Villiers wrote how he boarded the team bus after RCB’s defeat against Delhi Capitals (DC) and was asked by coach Gary Kirsten, “What was he thinking?”
Admitting that the training and planning in the team have been top notch, it’s the hunger to perform collectively on the ground that the players are lacking. “More often than not, in cricket, you can assess the state of a team by the way they field. Each player is a batsman or a bowler, and it is understandable that their primary focus is on batting or bowling… but every player is also a fielder and, in my view, you need a collective hunger and desire to operate as a strong unit in the field,” De Villiers wrote in response to Kirsten’s question.
RCB have lost one or two close games and ABD wants the whole team to stick together in these testing times.
“Maybe that’s where we are failing. Our fielding in this tournament has been very poor, and we simply can’t afford to be dropping multiple chances in every match. Of course, the margins are small. We might easily have beaten MI and KKR at home and, with another 20 runs on Sunday, we might have beaten DC at home as well. We could be sitting here with three wins from six matches, in contention. Instead, we must stay positive and stay together,” he added in his column.
