With four losses out of five and sitting at the bottom of the table, Royal Challengers Bangalore are suffering in the Indian Premier League. Their latest loss against Rising Pune Supergiant will hurt them more given they were not table to chase down 162 in their own backyard, a batting paradise. However, even dropping Chris Gayle wasn’t the solution. Head coach Daniel Vettori, however, defended the call to bring in Shane Watson in place of Gayle, saying he felt his team was a bowler short in the earlier matches.

“After the Mumbai Indians game, we thought we had a bowler short and Watson gives us the opportunity as he is a proven performer with both bat and ball,” Vettori said after RCB lost to RPS by 27 runs. “He has been a wonderful Twenty20 all-rounder and we decided to back Watson for his all-round skills.” However, Watson failed with ball and bat, conceding 44 runs in his four overs and scoring only 14 runs.

Advertisement

“We bowled tightly in the first 18 overs but went away with the plan in the last two overs, which cost us 30 runs,” Vettori added. “It was 15 runs too many and that put us under immense pressure. The Chinnaswamy wicket has not been a bad one for T20s. It has been exciting for the bowlers. All the matches here have been entertaining. It is different and we need to adapt. We have not been able to mirror the performance we had against Delhi Daredevils.”

RCB skipper Virat Kohli said that the team has to find a “winning formula” soon. “If we play like this, we don’t deserve to win,” he said. The last game, we fought hard. Today we let the game go away right in front of our eyes. We have a few things to address. We can’t think we can sweep sides away at home.”

Kohli also called for his team to not leave qualifying to the knockout stage of the tournament to the eleventh hour. “Last year, we had to win four out of four to qualify but that can’t happen every time,” he said. “As professional cricketers, you’re playing for a franchise, you are playing in front of a lot of people, we can’t keep doing this. Hopefully, we can turn things around and the players can take the responsibility.”