Death bowling woes leave RCB 'frustrated'

MUMBAI: If the Royal Challengers Bangalore are languishing at the seventh spot in IPL-11, a major share of the blame for that must be shared by their bowlers, who’ve reserved their ‘worst for the last,’ so to speak.
If on Sunday, the RCB conceded 88 runs off the last five overs against the Rajasthan Royals as a marauding Sanju Samson put them to sword, on Tuesday at the Wankhede, it was the turn of the Mumbai Indians, who blasted 70 off the last 30 balls of their innings, to make merry against the Virat Kohli & Co.On both the occasions, the teams went on to make 200-plus despite being under pressure initially.
Both the times, the RCB bowlers frittered away a good start by messing it up at the death, and on Tuesday night, after his team lost its third game out of the first four, coach Daniel Vettori confessed that it was ‘frustrating’ to see this factor hurt them badly. “I think the frustration will be on the back end of our bowling. We need to better on that front so that the batsmen aren’t chasing so much. When you are chasing so much it puts extreme amount of pressure on how you play. Virat played exceptionally well (he scored an unbeaten 92 which went in vain), but unfortunately none could go on with him. Our frustration will be how we ended with the ball in the last two games rather than our batting,” said Vettori.
He added that the team had a bowling gameplan for the final overs, but it was up to the bowlers to execute it. “We are getting good starts. Two wickets in two balls and the last Power Play against Rajasthan wasn’t so bad. But out finishing, the ability to close out innings has been poor. That’s purely an execution think. I think the planning and the strategy it’s all there. We just have to execute better,” felt the Kiwi.
A major difference between the teams, one the RCB would perhaps be most disappointed with, was the performance of the RCB spinners as compared to their Mumbai counterparts. While Yuzuvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar, who’re both regulars in the India T20 side, were smashed round for 62 runs in five overs, Krunal Pandya took three wickets, and Mayank Markande one for MI. Vettori, himself a former left-arm spinner for New Zealand, defended his spinners’ lacklusture show by saying that it was the aggressive batting of Evin Lewis and Rohit Sharma which put pressure on the RCB duo and forced them to bowl defensively. Contrastingly, he pointed out, the MI spinners could bowl attacking lines and lengths because of the cushion of a massive score behind them.
“I think with Washington and Yuzi, they were probably in defensive position with Rohit and Lewis being very aggressive. So we bowled defensively. When Mumbai spinners came on, their team was in a good position and that allowed them to actually bowl and be little more attacking. We saw the rewards what they got. So it’s different styles of bowling. Mumbai were on top when they came into bowl but we weren’t able to do a similar thing,” analysed the RCB coach.
Still, RCB have reason to feel let down with the poor display of of off-spinner Sundar, who did exceptionally well for Rising Pune Supergiant and then India coming into the IPL. On Tuesday night, the 18-year-old went for 32 off his two overs, with the first one costing 19 runs, including a big wide down the leg side which cost RCB five runs.
“Washington will be little bit disappointed with the five wides and maybe with a few other things,” said Vettori, before defending his newly-recruited bowler again. “They (Rohit & Lewis) batted exceptionally well, especially when our spinners were bowling.”