Will Jack rues powerplay bowling struggle as reason for RCB’s dwindling fortunes

Royal Challengers Bengaluru have struggled to get off to a winning momentum, having registered just one win in eight games. Bowling has been lackadaisical in all games, and despite the best efforts of the likes of Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik, there has been no change in fortune.

Adding insult to injury, Glenn Maxwell has been severely out of form, which led to RCB including Will Jacks in the Playing XI - and the English batter vindicated the selection with a 55 against Kolkata Knight Riders. 

Ahead of the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad on April 25 (Thursday), Jacks stated that the impact player rule ensured batters have more flexibility to go for runs, which worked against RCB bowlers on short Chinnaswamy boundaries. 

“With the Impact Rule, the teams are going hard at all the bowlers. We struggled with the new ball, not (being able to) take wickets in PowerPlay, and later we found it hard to defend the totals,” Jacks said in the pre-match press conference in Hyderabad.

“We made a conscious effort to take wickets with the new ball. Hopefully, that will pay off. You never know if we win a few matches, and from there, you never know what can happen,” the English batter added.

This season Sunrisers Hyderabad shed their conservative mindset to score runs at a pace never seen before. The duo of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head have become an all-dominant force in the powerplay - something that would rue RCB, especially after the mauling they received in the last H2H encounter in Bengaluru.

“SRH is high on confidence. They scored three scores over 260. All the batters seem to be in form and now they are playing at home. It is challenging to come here. If we restrict them to par or below par score, we can win,” Jacks said.

“Travis Head and Abhishek will go hard at bowlers from ball one. Whatever plans they have, we leave them to the bowlers. Both of them are pretty much batting the whole PowerPlay. So hopefully, if we get them and can bring No.3 early, we can restrict them for a low total,” Jacks said.