Royal Challengers Bangalore’s journey in IPL 4 so far – Chris Gayle has turned out to be a fortune-changer for Bangalore – Part One
Royal Challengers Bangalore have emerged as the form team of the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The points table after the league matches also suggests the same thing as Bangalore is leading the chart with 19 points after 14 outings.
Management of the Royal Challengers made drastic changes in their lineup from the previous seasons and Virat Kohli is the only player who was retained in the squad.
Bangalore were off to a poor start in the current season as they lost three matches on the trot after winning their opening fixture against Kochi Tuskers Kerala. Bangalore’s next encounter against Rajasthan Royals was abandoned due to rain and they were
reeling at the bottom of the points table with only three points after five matches.
Majority of the cricket analysts were criticizing Bangalore’s management for their poor selection and dropping players like Robin Uthappa and Rahul Dravid.
Director of the franchise Siddarth Mallya admitted yesterday that the management had to face a lot of hammering of the hands of all the cricket pundits.
Mallya said, "After our first win, we unfortunately lost our three next games. The commentary team wrote us off, the journalists wrote us off, the critics wrote us off. They said we had selected a wrong team. Where is (Rahul) Dravid? Where is (Robin) Uthappa?
they asked."
However, Royal Challengers made the best possible decision and offered a lucrative contract to the destructive West Indian opener Chris Gayle who is not in good terms with the Caribbean cricket officials at the present moment of time. On top of that, Gayle
went unsold in the auction for the fourth season.
Gayle changed the fortunes of Bangalore and put his team on winning ways. He announced his arrival in style against Kolkata Knight Riders (which is his previous IPL franchise) and blasted a hundred. Bangalore have looked a completely different unit since
then.
The Royal Challengers won seven consecutive matches from then onwards which is a record in itself as no IPL team has been able to do that in past. Previously Mumbai Indians were holding the record with six consecutive victories in the previous edition of
the league.
The explosive left hander did not just won matches on his own, in fact the likes of Kohli, Tillakaratane Dilshan and AB de Villiers also got the inspiration from Gayle and raised their game as well. Since then, the team spirit of Royal Challengers has been
exemplary and it has been quite evident on the field as well.
Former West Indies captain has played only nine matches in the tournament so far and yet he is the leading run scorer of the current season with 511 runs which includes a couple of thundering hundreds. His average is 85.16 runs per innings, which is absolutely
unbelievable in the shortest format of the game.
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