Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) dazzling opening duo of Virat Kohli and Faf Du Plessis can rattle any team's bowling line up on their given day. They showed a glimpse of it in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 opener against Mumbai Indians (MI) when Kohli & Du Plessis combined to stitch an opening stand of 148 runs to make the light work of MI's 172-run target. While Kohli struck a cracking 82 off 49, Du Plessis clobbered an incredible 73 off 43 to chase down the total with 22 balls and eight wickets to spare.
But RCB's dependency on Kohli and Du Plessis came to the fore when they suffered an 81-run drubbing at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday (April 6). After the dismissals of Kohli (21) and Du Plessis (23), none of the RCB batter, including the explosive Glenn Maxwell (5) and experienced Dinesh Karthik (9), really rose to the occasion which resulted in their collapse. RCB failed to achieve KKR's daunting target of 205 as their entire team was bowled out for just 123, handing Nitish Rana's men the biggest victory in the IPL 2023.
Meanwhile, former India's explosive batter Virender Sehwag slammed Maxwell and Karthik and blamed them for RCB's collapse against KKR. Sehwag warned RCB that they can't depend on just two players and said it's like only when Kohli and Du Plessis play well RCB will win.
"You can't depend on just two players. It's like only when Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis play well RCB will win. This can't happen. Glenn Maxwell has to contribute. Dinesh Karthik has to contribute. The others will have to chip in. Even Anuj Rawaj, who came in as an Impact Player, needs to do well. RCB needs to look if there are any better options available than him," Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
Sehwag also said that Rajat Patidar's injury has cost RCB big time as they lack a responsible batter like him in the middle order.
"Rajat Patidar was one man who scored a lot of runs for RCB last year and smashed a century too. He impressed a lot so his injury appears to have jolted RCB a lot," Sehwag said.
"The type of game RCB has played will happen to every team in this tournament. One batting collapse happens to everybody, that is the history of IPL. Somebody will have this collapse at the start of the tournament, some towards the end. It's good that this happened to RCB in the second itself. If this had happened after 8-9 matches in the league then it would have made a huge difference in the points table because of a poor net run rate. Then you might have been left with no option but to win all of your remaining matches to qualify. But now they still have a chance to make a comeback," Sehwag concluded.
RCB will next face Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on April 10.
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