IPL: A great season for RCB, shaped by the bowlers

Hindustan Times

29-04-2025

It's turning out to be potentially the best season for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). They are sitting right at the top of the table now with seven wins in 10 matches.
So, what's been the reason for this?
For starters, in the seven wins so far, RCB have had six different players as Player-of-the-Match with Krunal Pandya receiving this honour twice. Basically, RCB have had many different heroes through the season and this is always a great sign to look for in a team; a team that's not dependent on a couple of players to win matches.
Individual brilliance can win you some matches but to win consistently you need multiple infusions of brilliance through different sources. Like it's in other formats, it's the bowling attack that sets a team apart; yes, batting is important, but this time around RCB's bowling unit has been in top form.
Almost 50% of the Player-of-the-Match awards have gone to their bowlers. A great achievement in what is essentially an unbalanced format where batters rule in ideal conditions.
Four of these wins for RCB have come in chases and these are the targets their batters had to chase in those four games: 174, 175, 157 and 162. As you can see, RCB had won the game at the halfway stage thanks to their bowlers. Any decent batting line-up can chase such targets in batting conditions under lights, with eight pure batters in the line-up.
Our media tends to focus on the batter a lot, but this is another case in point where the batters are in the spotlight but it's the bowlers who get the points. Krunal Pandya has been Player-of-the-Match twice for RCB this season, but how many times has he really made the headlines or basked in the limelight?
He has flown under the radar along with the terrific Josh Hazelwood, who has also made a tremendous contribution to RCB's winning run.
When you look at bowling attacks this IPL, the most impressive attacks are with Gujarat Titans, Delhi Capitals, Mumbai Indians and RCB. Any surprise that you find these four teams in the top four of the points table?
One important reason why Gujarat Titans have made such a great impression as an IPL team since their debut is that they have a very passionate former India bowler as head coach. You always see Ashish Nehra along the boundary ropes when his team is bowling. His involvement, commitment and passion is obvious.
When his team is batting though, he just sits quietly in one corner of the dug out. It tells you a lot about our sport – batting does not need as much attention from the coach but when you have all your 11 players in the field with so many dynamics in play, that's what needs the most attention and guidance.
All great sides at the international level too, whatever the format, have been those that excelled in the field with bowling, catching, etc. All great sides have great bowling attacks and that's one common trait that hasn't changed through the ages, whatever the format.
India won the last T20 World Cup thanks to their bowling. South Africa needed 30 off 30 to win the cup, a cakewalk really… but a Bumrah-led India attack achieved the impossible.
India are winning more now because of their bowling. During the Fab 4 days, our win record was not as impressive as it is today.
I have to sign off with a mention of lesser-known Indian batters who have been the big story this IPL, whether it's Priyansh Arya, Sai Sudharsan, Prabhsimran Singh, Naman Dhir, the list is long… but now we have teenagers exploding onto the scene from Rajasthan Royals.
Clearly there is some rare ball-hitting talent there; I like how Vaibhav Suryavanshi gets deep in the crease as a trigger movement to give himself the time to watch the behaviour of the ball closely, which then also enables him to get under the ball to hit in the air; the languid bat swing does the rest.
He managed to do something that no one else has done before, get Rahul Dravid up on his feet excited and animated... now that was fun to see!
It will be interesting to see the evolution of Suryavanshi in the next 3-4 years. At the end of it we will have more clarity on him, and with it, on IPL as a platform for batters.