IPL 2017: Royal Challengers Bangalore's lack of foundation this season has been their undoing

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was a must-read in school. Later, in college, WB Yeats’ The Second Coming poetically drove home the message. And now as the present edition of IPL explodes in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) face the belief when ‘Centre cannot hold, things fall apart’ is forcefully brought to the fore.

Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) were not the greatest of opponents for RCB. On most days the target of 158 runs would have been a walk in the park for the reputed lineup which consists real giants of batting, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, among several other competent players.

Unfortunately these are not normal times, at least for RCB.

“We are not getting good performances. It may be lack of intent. The guys are afraid of failure, of getting out,” said Kohli on live television after the match.

It is not any one person who has fallen through, but the very concept of a foundation seems to have eluded the team. They have tried many batsmen at the top, Kohli, Chris Gayle, Travis Head, Shane Watson, Mandeep Singh and even rookie Vishnu Vinod as openers. Sadly none of them have really come good. There was the odd good innings by Kohli and Gayle. But they were not the sort that could lift the team out of the quagmire it has been stuck in right through the season.

Coach Daniel Vettori, reputed former international cricketer who played and led New Zealand with aplomb, did not want to go into an analysis. His contention was that there were four more matches and any review would have to be only at the end of the campaign.

Nevertheless he attributed the constant losses to the changes in team composition which in turn forced change of plans. These were brought about by absence due to injury of many key personnel and almost all of them at an inopportune time.

Surely it could not have been a reassuring camp which found out that the captain and best batsman, Kohli was not available at the start of the season. Rumours and motivated, planted tales that he would be out of the mix right through the season did not help any. It demoralised the team, particularly as they learnt that KL Rahul, AB de Villiers too would not be available at the start.

The loss of three solid batsmen early on and RCB’s inability to zero in on worthwhile replacements weighed down the team. To make matters worse Gayle and stand-in skipper Shane Watson were not firing like before. Thus RCB’s campaign was doomed from the start.

It quickly spiraled downwards even after the return of Kohli. Initially either the fielding or the bowling was a problem. But while they sorted themselves out the batting never really took off.

The rout by Kolkata Knight Riders for 49 in a mere 9.4 overs with a top score of 9 on a good pitch exposed the team’s frazzled state of mind. But it didn’t end there. The next match against Gujarat Lions was almost as humiliating, except that it was not any top-order batsman, but a tailender, Pawan Negi, who top scored with 32.

To state that RCB’s batting has been shocking would be an understatement. On Saturday as a massive holiday crowd sat back to enjoy the batsmanship of RCB’s superstars, it was number 10 batsman Sreenath Arvind who with 8 runs, turned out to be the second-highest scorer.

Kohli made 55 in a very un-Kohli like fashion. He looked as tentative and hesitant as the other batsmen in chasing down a relatively small target of 158. The other batsmen were awful: Head made 2, De Villiers 3, Kedar Jadhav 7, Sachin Baby 2, Stuart Binny 1, Negi 3, Adam Milne 5, Samuel Badree 2 and Yuzvendra Chahal 4! RCB finished with 96 for 9 in 20 overs, thus narrowly escaping the mortification of being bowled out in three matches.

There is little doubt that all of RCB problems are in the mind. Their batsmen have the skill, talent and proven ability to hammer the daylights out of any attack. That they have not done so even once this season is a telling commentary on their state of mind and the woeful inability of the coach and others to take their mind off the game and put them at ease. Unless that is done, this will continue to be RCB’s summer of discontent.