IPL 2023, Royal Challengers Bangalore season review: Virat Kohli back to his best but RCB fail to fire collectively

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) endured yet another roller-coaster of an Indian Premier League (IPL) season that ended in heartbreak, after a six-wicket defeat to Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Chinnaswamy Stadium brought curtains down on their campaign.

IPL 2023: Full coverage | Points table | Schedule | Results | Orange Cap | Purple Cap​

A sixth place finish with just 14 points is certainly disappointing for a team like RCB who boast of stars like Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis.

But what has let them down?

Middle-order batting

Throughout the season, RCB were heavily reliant on their top three of Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell to produce the big runs. The middle-order comprising of the likes of Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik and Anuj Rawat failed to fire, and that lack of ability to do so hurt RCB’s momentum in posting totals in excess of 200.

To put into context, the top three of Du Plessis, Kohli and Maxwell combined to share 1769 runs between them, whereas the middle-order trio of Lomror, Rawat and Karthik managed just 366 runs between them.

What RCB lacked in their batting lineup was a proper finisher, like say someone like Rinku Singh or Rahul Tewatia. Dinesh Karthik used to finish games for RCB last season, but this season, he has looked awfully out of touch as far as his batting is concerned.

Maybe, it’s a sign that RCB may have to move on from Karthik and invest on a proper finisher ahead of IPL 2024.

Death overs bowling

RCB’s bowlers have struggled at the death overs this IPL season. The RCB bowlers have one of the worst economy rates (10.8) in death overs in IPL 2023, and have been inconsistent in that phase this season.

Both Harshal Patel and Mohammed Siraj have done quite well with the new ball, but both have struggled in the back end of an innings.

Against CSK in Bengaluru, Vijaykumar Vyshak endured figures of 1/62 from four overs. 33 of these runs came in the last five overs of CSK’s innings.

Wanindu Hasaranga, too, had been out of touch this season. After having finished with 26 scalps from 16 matches in 2022, the Sri Lankan could only get nine wickets from eight matches at an economy of 8.90 in 2023.

Virat Kohli hits the right notes

One positive for RCB this season has been Virat Kohli hitting the right notes once again in the IPL. With two centuries and six fifties in the IPL this season, it feels like Kohli has come a long way from last season, when his struggles with the bat were prevalent.

Even against GT, Kohli put his best foot forward with an unbeaten 101, but was unfortunate to end up on the losing side.

Although Kohli ended his IPL 2023 campaign with 639 runs from 14 matches, his strike-rate has been repeatedly questioned, but as Kohli mentioned during the mid-match interview on Sunday, it was just about enjoying his game.

And this season, it even seemed as though RCB’s return to Chinnaswamy Stadium might have been an added motivation for Kohli to put his best performance.

Kohli did give his best this season, but in a long tournament like the IPL, it’s that collective effort that matters and RCB lacked that in some stages of their campaign, eventually costing them a playoff spot.

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