So, one more IPL year, one more failure. The Royal Challengers Bangalore despite 14 years of playing in the IPL is yet to win a tournament. Leave alone the tournament, they have qualified the finals only twice. This despite the fact that Kohli, De Villiers have played for most of the time. In 2021, RCB were bolstered by Maxwell and Harshal Patel. None of these players were able to help RCB win the tournament for the first time. What about Kohli himself? What will his legacy be with RCB? Let me try to analyse Kohli and his legacy with RCB.
Kohli has announced that the 2021 season will be his last as captain of RCB. He has also said that he will continue to play for RCB till he retires from all forms of the game. This is understandable. Afterall, he wants to contribute to his favourite franchise as long as he can.
“As I said, I don’t see myself playing anywhere else. To me loyalty matters more than other things which, from the worldly point of view, seem more important. This franchise has believed in me and my commitment is to this franchise till the last day I play the IPL.”
Perhaps not a rosy legacy
However, it is as captain that his legacy will be defined. I am afraid that legacy will not be that rosy to read.
Kohli replaced Daniel Vettori as the skipper of RCB back in 2013. Since then, he led the side over 9 seasons and 140 games. No other captain except for Dhoni has led a team over these many seasons. Atleast in the case of Dhoni, he won 3 tournaments and CSK have reached the 9th finals in 12 editions but in the case of Kohli he wasn’t able to win even one. It really is a surprise that he was allowed to continue as captain despite not a single tournament win.
All I can say is that I’ve given my best. I don’t know how the response has been to that, but I can vouch for the fact that I’ve given my 120% to this franchise every year, leading the team.
“And as I said, I will continue to give that effort on the field as a player from now on. It’s a great time to regroup, restructure the franchise for the next three years, and bring in people who can take this culture and this franchise to the next level, moving forward.”
Lack of support lower down the order
There is absolutely no doubt in the fact that Kohli gave his everything to the franchise. As a batsman. It was as a skipper where he wasn’t able to add much value. The franchise always were few players short. Both batsmen or bowlers. Previous years, the team leaned heavily on Kohli and De Villiers to score bulk of the runs. Their bowling attack was pretty weak with Siraj, Chahal and Saini proving to be exceptionally liberal. The lack of depth in the batting order was another major concern.
Beyond Kohli and De Villiers, there wasn’t anyone to stabilise the innings or to provide impetus to the innings. This is something that must have been corrected during the auction. RCB must have invested money on bowlers who can also bat but they didn’t. What is the point in investing more than 14Crores on Jamieson who hardly had a role to play? That was such a wasted investment. This was where Kohli really did not succeed.
Failed at the auction
He knew most of the current players. He has played against Jamieson and should have known that Jamieson will not be much effective either in India or UAE. Kohli, ideally must have directed his franchise not to invest so much on Jamieson who will not get that many games anyway. The 2021 team was never balanced and they were sent packing in the playoffs and rightly so.
RCB got lucky with Maxwell’s selection. With Kohli’s bad form and AB not being at his usual best, much was left to Maxwell. Added to that, the lower order of Christian, Garton, Chahal, Siraj and Harshal are absolutely hopeless with the bat. They hardly contribute with the bat. So much so that all the opponents will have to do is make them stand in a line and bowl just one delivery to all of them. No wonder RCB weren’t able to post huge totals or chase big totals because there was absolutely no confidence on the lower order.
This could have been mitigated if only the franchise had purchased better. For that Kohli and Mike Hesson will have to cope the blame. They backed the wrong players and that showed throughout the campaign.
Gambhir was correct
“You have got to be instinctive and ahead of the game. Yes, you would see the passion and energy but that’s not enough to win you trophies. You got to be a good tactician as well [who knows] when to do what.”
None of these would have mattered to me because I am not a fan of IPL. My only worry is that with a World Cup starting in about 2 weeks, Kohli’s lack of a trophy win is what I am really concerned about. Whether he will carry this onto the world cup too?
I am not here to criticise Kohli but just to remark that his RCB legacy will forever remain unfulfilled.
However, Kohli found support amongst Gavaskar and AB who had nice words for Kohli at the end of his tenure.
“It certainly is (disappointing). Everybody wants to finish on a high. Individually, you want to finish on a high. But these things don’t always happen according to what you wish or your fans wish. The script is not always written that way. Not everybody has this great fortune of going on a high.”
AB De Villiers
You’ve had a much bigger impact than you will ever understand. There are stories that you don’t even hear of people’s lives that you have touched not only on the cricket field but away from it as well by making people believe in themselves. I think that’s much more important than a trophy, which I still believe will come your way.”
Let us hope that AB’s words comes true in the immediate future.
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