Follow UsThe Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) home ground curse has continued, as they were defeated yet again at their own den, the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Delhi Capitals (DC) proved much better than RCB on the day, triumphing over the home side by six wickets with 13 balls remaining in the chase.
RCB were going great guns in the first four overs of the first innings and the pitch was looking great to bat on as they raced to 62/1 in no time. However, they suffered a collapse as the batters went for big shots and lost their shape.
The score was already 102/5 in the 13th over, and at the end, it could reach 163/7 after DC spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Vipraj Nigam bowled brilliantly to stifle the RCB batters.
Dinesh Karthik, a former RCB player who’s working as a batting coach now, felt that despite batting wickets being suited for T20 cricket, his team has been getting challenging wickets to bat on in Bengaluru, and that has affected their performance.
“I think the way T20 cricket is, the more runs are there, the better it is for the broadcaster, the better it is for the fans. They all like to see boundaries," Karthik said after RCB’s loss.
“In the first two games, we have asked for good pitches. But it's turned out in this way where it's been challenging to bat on, for sure. Definitely, this is not a pitch that's helping the batters too much. It's a challenging pitch. That has been the case so far in both the games that we have played.”
According to Karthik, the pitch's tackiness made it tough for the batters to take their shots, leading to wicket losses in the middle. He said he would chat with the curator to understand his process better.
“There's been a wobble when people have tried to stay out there and fight it out as well. It's been hard to, at times, rotate strike. And the big shot has been really hard as well. So we have tried to control it [the hitting]," Karthik added.
"But, at the end, it's a T20. You have to play some shots and that has gotten the wicket of a few batters.
“We will obviously have a chat with the curator. We trust him to do his job, and we will try and do the best of what we can.”
RCB skipper Rajat Patidar had also noted the difference in the pitch and felt that his batters didn’t bat well on the night against DC.
“I think the way we have seen the wicket earlier, I think this was quite different. We thought it will be a nice batting track and then I think we have not batted well," Patidar remarked.
"Every batsman is in a good frame of mind; I think everyone has shown the proper intent. But at the end, I think 80 for 1 [61 for 1] and then straightaway 90 for 4, I think that is not acceptable on this track.”
RCB’s next match will be played on April 13 against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Jaipur.