Royal Challengers
Royal Challengers Bangalore (often abbreviated as RCB) is a cricket team based in Bangalore, Karnataka that plays in the Indian Premier League. The team is currently led by Virat Kohli[1] and coached by South African Ray Jennings. The team is owned by Vijay Mallya, through his flagship firm UB Group.[2] The director of the team is Sidhartha Mallya.[3][4] RCB plays its home matches at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The RCB team usually looks promising on paper but has managed to reach the playoffs/semi-finals only in 3 of the 6 IPLs so far. They hold the joint record for most consecutive victories in the IPL having won 7 matches on the trot in the 2011 edition. The team has also qualified and played in all the seasons of the Champions League Twenty20
Franchise history
Indian Premier League is a cricket tournament being organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and backed by the International Cricket Council (ICC).[5] For the inaugural tournament held in April–June 2008, the BCCI had finalised a list of 8 teams who will be participating in the tournament. The teams representing 8 different cities of India, including Bangalore, were put up on auction in Mumbai on 20 February 2008 and the Bangalore team was won by Vijay Mallya, who paid US$111.6 million for it. This was the second highest bid for a team in the IPL, next only to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries' bid of $111.9 million for the Mumbai team. Bollywood actresses Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone, and Sandalwood film stars Ramya and Puneeth Rajkumar are the brand ambassadors of the team.[6]
2008 IPL season
Main article: 2008 Indian Premier League
The team won only 4 matches in the inaugural season, losing 10 matches and finishing second from the bottom in the table. Only one of their batsmen, Rahul Dravid, managed to score more than 300 runs in the tournament and they had to even bench their costliest foreign player, Jacques Kallis, for a few of the matches due to his poor form.[7][8] The string of failures mid-way through the season led to the sacking of the CEO, Charu Sharma who was replaced with Brijesh Patel.[9] Even coach Venkatesh Prasad was reportedly about to be sacked, but he saved his job by publicly apologising for the team's failure. Vijay Mallya went on to publicly criticise Dravid and Sharma for the failures by saying that they had not selected the right team. He regretted that he had made a mistake by not getting involved in the selection of the team.[9] They were the only team in the IPL to try out 11 opening combinations in 14 games. Eventually the chief cricketing officer, Martin Crowe resigned.[10] It was decided that from 2009 IPL session onwards the team would be coached by former South Africa coach Ray Jennings.
2009 IPL season
Main article: 2009 Indian Premier League
The team started with a win against defending champions Rajasthan Royals but quickly went on to lose the next six games under the captaincy of Kevin Pietersen. However, he had to leave for national duty and captaincy was taken over by former Indian Test captain Anil Kumble. The team fortunes reversed and they beat Deccan Chargers to secure a 3rd place after the round robin stage. In the semi final they beat the Chennai Super Kings convincingly, who were led by M S Dhoni and crushed their hopes of winning the title. However they lost the final by 6 runs, in a close match to Deccan Chargers. Also Manish Pandey became the first Indian to score a century in IPL when he made 114* (73) against Deccan Chargers in their last match in the league phase. Anil Kumble also had a very good economy rate in the tournament which was held in South Africa.
2010 IPL season
Main article: 2010 Indian Premier League
Challengers had a mixed round of success in the third edition of the IPL. The team slumped to a defeat in their first match against the Knight Riders but came back strongly to win the next four games which started off with the highest successful run chase in IPL 2010 and the second highest successful run chase in IPL history against Kings XI Punjab at Bangalore. This win was followed by comprehensive wins against the Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings. Kallis and Uthappa were in tremendous form with the bat, while Kumble was miserly with the ball, Steyn fast and accurate and Vinay Kumar wily picking wickets at the right time. However, the team lost the next two games and after a roller coaster ride, managed to sneak into the semis for the second consecutive season by virtue of their healthy net run rate beating Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders both of whom had equal number of wins and losses as the Bangalore outfit. In the semifinal, RCB put on a shoddy display after beginning well and conceded 77 runs during the last 5 overs of the Mumbai innings. The chase never took off and they went on to lose the match by 35 runs. The team had the final laugh after they comprehensively beat the defending champions Deccan Chargers, against whom they lost the previous year's final by 9 wickets. RCB finished the season in third position and thereby booked a slot in the 2010 Champions League Twenty20.
2011 IPL season
Main article: 2011 Indian Premier League
RCB kicked off their campaign with a comfortable six-wicket win over the newly formed team, Kochi Tuskers Kerala. But then they suffered three big defeats at the hands of Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers and Chennai Super Kings. At this stage, speedster Dirk Nannes was ruled out of the tournament and RCB team management named West Indian opener Chris Gayle as his replacement.Gayle, who was in the highest reserve price tag ($400,000), found no bidders thinking that he would be unavailable for the IPL T20 league as West Indies team had Pakistan tournament during the same period. But with the West Indies selectors leaving out Gayle along with other senior players Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan for the first two matches of the ODI series against Pakistan, RCB have signed up the explosive batsman for their team.Gayle started off the tournament with a century (102* off 55 balls) against Kolkata Knight Riders, giving the Challengers an emphatic 9-wicket win. RCB also managed to beat Delhi Daredevils and Pune Warriors in their next two matches. They went on to beat Kings XI Punjab by a big margin of 85 runs, after Gayle smashed his second century of the tournament (107 off 49 balls). They won their next two matches against Kochi and Rajasthan Royals, both comprehensively by 9 wickets. They also defeated Kolkata in a rain-affected match at Bangalore. But then, Kings XI Punjab, riding on a blistering hundred by their skipper Adam Gilchrist, ended RCB's 7-match winning streak, with a huge 111-run margin win. In their last league match, the Challengers beat the defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 8 wickets to end at the top of the points table. Chris Gayle shining once again with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 75 off 50 balls.
Royal Challengers faced Chennai Super Kings in the 1st qualifier at Mumbai. Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 70 off just 44 balls to help RCB put up 175/4 in their 20 overs. Despite losing early wickets, Chennai went on to win the match by 6 wickets. The win took Chennai to the final and RCB faced Mumbai Indians in the 2nd qualifier in Chennai. Batting first, Royal Challengers made a massive 185/4 in 20 overs on a slow Chepauk track. Chris Gayle was the star once again for them as he scored a blistering 89 runs off 47 balls. Mumbai never looked in the hunt for a win as they collapsed to a 43-run defeat. The Royal Challengers qualified for the finals with this win and went on to face Chennai at their home ground in the finals. Winning the toss, Chennai elected to bat first in the finals. The Super Kings posted a huge total of 205/5. The Challengers did not bat well and lost the match by 4 wickets. Chris Gayle was named Man of the Tournament and Bangalore set a new IPL record for the most successive wins by winning 7 matches on the trot.
2012 IPL season
Main article: 2012 Indian Premier League
Royal Challengers Bangalore began the 2012 IPL without the services of talisman Chris Gayle
