The general work of analysts before any multi-team tournament is to churn out the probabilities and different permutations and combinations of teams to predict their chances of winning the tournament. Actually, a very basic practice gives the readers a better overview of things to expect in the tournament. Not forgetting that, it also helps us analysts to make some bucks too.

On the same lines, I fail to decipher a single IPL tournament in recent years in which RCB did not start as the favorites to lift the trophy. The Bangalore based team boasts of probably the best attractive index amongst all the other franchisees. With the number of star players at their disposal, it is always difficult to fathom why they fail to perform regularly at their level best.

Probably the 2016 IPL season was the benchmark for them, as it signified the closest they came to clinching the title since 2011. Now, what exactly went right for them that season?

Virat Kohli has always been the main man

Well, for starters, everything that went right for them flew through Virat Kohli in 2016. The current Indian captain has been in a stellar run of form ever since then but the fag end of 2015 was kind of the initiation of his consistently excellent performances. 2016 had started with a bang for him as he played three crucial knock in the T20I bilateral series against Australia in Australia.

Next to that was the T20I World Cup, and Kohli played some unbelievable knocks to ensure that the Indian team proceeded till the semi-finals. He was also awarded the Man of the Tournament award due to his match-winning innings against Australia and then a steady stay at the crease against West Indies.

That has probably been the best phase of Virat Kohli’s T20 career, though; he will surely replicate and even better that kind of form due to his perceived longevity and unparalleled consistency in the game. Therefore, it is very clear by now that Kohli entered the IPL 2016 on the back of a rich vein of form.

In addition, a major reason why the man from Delhi succeeded was that he was opening the innings for RCB. It provided him the cushion of playing in the batting restrictions and that accordingly helped him shape up his innings too. Then he teed up with AB de Villiers in the middle overs and hence played long innings and carved his impact in the game.

The stats are pretty clear too; he scored 973 runs in 16 innings’, at an average of 81.08. He stayed not out on four occasions and scored seven half centuries. Kohli capped that season off with a personal best, astonishing four centuries and that clearly helped RCB post huge totals on the board. He also maintained a strike rate of 152.32, his best in all the seasons yet.

Kohli had also hit 38 sixes that season; his next best is 23 in 2015, and that shows how much batting through the innings helped the captain. Firstly, Kohli is not a swashbuckling batsman who likes to rip apart the opposition in the first ten balls itself.

His primary objective is always to pace his innings, and target the bowlers once he finds his groove on the field. His pacing of the innings has always been commendable, as Kohli develops to strike with brute force coupled with pure elegance in the final overs.

With the vast array of shots in his possession, and the game-awareness and match-winning mentality, it is almost given that he should play the majority of twenty overs to give RCB an advantage in batting. However, would you call Virat Kohli’s impact and importance on RCB as overdependence?

Relying on your best player to get the job done most of the times is not an issue. After all, they are marquee signings and are the most capable of the lot to get the team over the finishing line. Kohli’s calm-headedness whilst chasing a target is unmatched in world cricket. He is very calculative with his risks, and hardly ever presents the opposition an opportunity to get better of him.

However, one must wonder that Kohli is required to chase big totals due to the (until now) underperforming bowling unit of RCB. The Bangalore-based outfit has always been criticized for showing their bowling lineups a cold shoulder. It depends on the personal choices of the team and a captain too.

As the captain of Indian cricket team, Virat Kohli has always emphasized on playing five specialist bowlers in Test cricket. He believes that taking wickets is the best way to win a match, and hence it is almost unimaginable to assume that he wouldn’t apply this policy to RCB too.

After all, a team follows the captain, and hence according to Kohli’s beliefs, RCB must be stringent and strong in bowling. However, once you take a deeper look, then it is quite visible that they have not solved out their problems completely yet.

At the beginning of the auctions, it was expected that RCB would solve their bowling worries this time around. They had a chance of rebuilding the squad from scratch and had retained their two best batsmen in Virat Kohli and Ab de Villiers. Now, all they had to do was surround these batsmen with able middle order players, and then beef up their bowling department with fit, young pacers.

South [Paws] is the direction RCB headed towards

RCB's new direction

Now apparently, RCB have used the good old trick that SRH applied in their title-winning campaign of 2016. That season, SRH had Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Nehra, Trent Boult and Barinder Sran in their armoury. As you see the pattern here, all four of them are left-arm bowlers, something that gives any team a vast advantage over the opposition.

They also had Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner and Eoin Morgan in their batting lineup, and that sums up their left-handers dominated approach towards building their squad that season. VVS Laxman has since then regularly focused on how southpaws provide any team with an extra edge in important matches. Right-handed batsmen find it difficult to bat against the cramped angle that left-handed bowlers are able to churn out in the first six overs.

RCB, this season, lured the likes of young Kulwant Khejroliya, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini and now Corey Anderson (as a replacement). They have made an honest attempt to combine their fearsome batting with a young, vibrant and unique-looking bowling lineup. The only issue is; it is just not meant to be like that.

The three young Indian pacers are quite inexperienced to deliver regularly with consistent performances. Saini is yet to make his IPL debut, whereas Choudhary and Khejroliya have played eight games in the IPL combined together. Moreover, Khejroliya, despite being immensely talented has been hit all over the park due to some inconsistency in his bowling. He possesses good pace but will take his time to settle into the format and team for sure.

SRH, that year, had combined young Sran and Rahman with a more-experienced and accomplished Bhuvuneshwar Kumar and Ashish Nehra. However, RCB have tried to do that too. They brought in Umesh Yadav to lead the pack; but Yadav’s bowling in T20 cricket leaves a lot to desired.

I have had a feeling since long that Yadav is an excellent Test bowler, as his action makes him bowl consistent length balls; something that is exceedingly appreciated for the good in Tests, but is almost criminal to do in T20s. Over the past four seasons (not counting this one), he has recorded economy rate of more than 9 RPO, two times, while the other two times it was higher than 8 RPO.

Umesh struggles in the death overs

He bowls in the fielding restrictions and death overs so the high economy rate is kind of expected. However, he might not be someone whom you could trust to bowl regularly in the crucial stages of a T20 game. Yadav rarely makes it into the Indian T20I side too and hence that indicates his limitations in the shortest format of the game.

Chris Woakes might be a wicket-taking bowler but he bleeds away a lot of runs and his economy of 9.25 in the IPL is a testament to that. At such a moment, RCB need a fast-bowling leader in their playing XI. Someone like Zaheer Khan, whose services they had in some of the previous seasons.

SRH have Bhuvi, MI had Lasith Malinga and both Bumrah and Mclenaghan have gained that experience now. KXIP have Andrew Tye, CSK have Dwayne Bravo and accordingly, you can see the effect on the field. Like RCB, even RR lack a fast-bowling leader in their squad.

Accordingly, the Ajinkya Rahane led team has been struggling in their bowling aspect too. Fortunately, RCB have Yuzvendra Chahal, who has been consistently amongst wickets and is instrumental to RCB’s bowling in the middle overs.

However, the lack of a proper fast-bowling leader might come back to haunt them. Shane Watson was used very well in 2016 when he finished the season with an impressive 20 wickets. Watson was seen communicating with the fellow pacers regularly and he himself bowled many overs in the final stages.

However, Kohli is extremely experienced and well versed to help his bowlers when necessary; the presence of an experienced T20 fast bowler is quite important. Especially because, the most crucial, death overs are bowled by pacers, rather than spinners. 

The other major issue that arises for them is the middle-order at their disposal. Kohli tried to drop down at number three so that he could provide better stability to the team. Against Mumbai Indians though, he went on to open the innings and that maybe an indicator of what to expect in the batting order.

Initially, one expected Brendon McCulum and Quinton de Kock to open the innings as they already had Nathan-Coulter Nile in the bowling. This would have helped them with some assurance in bowling and could have allowed RCB to do what they like the best; that means to go all out and put every bet on their batting.