IPL 2025: Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is the most popular team on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But they are the last to win the trophy. The 'Garden City' franchise has been participating in the IPL since 2008. They have also played in the finals several times. But they had to return empty-handed. This time, the officials are desperate to ensure that the ship does not sink again after reaching the shore. That is why only three players have been retained from last year's squad. They have decided to completely revamp the squad. The team has been newly formed from the mega auction held in November. Batting, bowling, and fielding have been given considerable importance during the selection of cricketers. 'New Look' RCB is showing dreams to the fans. Experts also believe that RCB's trophy drought will end for these three reasons.
Bengaluru's strength has increased in the bowling department-
Bowling has always been one of the headaches for Bengaluru (RCB). Despite scoring more than 200 runs on the scoreboard, many matches have been lost simply because of bowling failure. Royal Challengers Bangalore officials paid special attention to strengthening the fragile bowling attack in this mega auction. They did not hesitate to let go of Mohammad Siraj, who had become a 'home boy'. Instead, they invested in T20 specialists like Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood. Young Turkish Yash Dayal has been retained. The responsibility of increasing the pressure on the opponent in the power play and death overs will be on these three pacers. After Yuzvendra Chahal left the team, Royal Challengers' spin department also became weak. The franchise has also taken steps to solve that problem. Talented youngsters like Suyash Sharma have been brought into the team. Livingstone and Krunal Pandya are also there.
Great depth in the Bengaluru squad-
This time, the depth of the Royal Challengers Bangalore squad has also caught the attention of cricket experts. For the last three years, they have been overly dependent on Kohli, du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell. The performance of the rest was not as expected. To avoid that problem in the 18th IPL, the officials have included a bunch of stars in the team at once. They have also kept an eye on problems like injuries so that they do not disturb the balance of the squad under any circumstances. Multiple options or back-ups have been kept in the team for each position. West Indies' Romario Sheppard is an alternative to foreign all-rounders like Tim David and Liam Livingstone, and Jitesh Sharma is a replacement for Phil Salt. Coach Andy Flower can freely play stars like Rasik Dar Salam, Nuwan Tushara, Lungi Ngidi as an alternative to Bhuvneshwar Kumar or Josh Hazlewood.
The middle order gap has been filled-
In the recent past, except for Rajat Patidar, no one has seen runs in the middle order of Bengaluru. Which has repeatedly become one of the obstacles on the way to winning the trophy. In search of success, the franchise has also decided to strengthen the middle order. This time, Devdutt Padikkal can bat for them at number three. The Karnataka youth is returning home in the 2025 IPL. Captain Patidar himself will be at number four. Liam Livingstone can be seen at number five. The entire cricket world is familiar with the England star's ability to play a thrilling innings. Australian all-rounder Tim David can be seen at number six. He is also ready to bat in a storm. Krunal Pandya can also play an effective innings by coming down at number seven. The increase in the number of batting options has undoubtedly brought smiles to the faces of Royal Challengers fans.
IPL 2025: Rajasthan is not winning the IPL, these 3 reasons prove it!!
IPL 2025: Rajasthan Royals (RR) won the title in the first year of IPL in 2008. Then Rajasthan reached the mega final again in 2022. But Rajasthan had to admit defeat in front of Hardik's Gujarat. Rajasthan Royals are going to play their first match against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the upcoming IPL. This time Rajasthan's team is comparatively weak, the franchise will have to pay for the decision not to retain star players. Not only that, Rajasthan will not win the IPL for these 3 reasons.
Infrastructure destroyed
Before the mega auction, the Rajasthan franchise made a big mistake by not retaining stars like Kiwi star Trent Boult, English star Jos Buttler, IPL's most successful bowler Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin. These four names have been the mainstay of Rajasthan's victories over the past few seasons. However, Rajasthan made a big mistake by releasing four people before the auction. After dropping four people, Rajasthan has lacked strength. Judging by the current Rajasthan squad, there is a lack of character in the batting and the bench strength is very weak. Similarly, the bowlers who got the opportunity could not do justice to their names in the same way. Then the decision to take the field without the players is simply a wrong decision.
Lack of mature batsmen
Apart from West Indies star Shimron Hetmyer, Rajasthan have no foreign batsmen. The franchise will have to regret the decision to release Buttler before the auction. This time, talking about Rajasthan's batting, apart from Hetmyer, the franchise is surrounded by players like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Rana and Riyan Parag. Firstly, Sanju has lost his rhythm, secondly, Jaiswal has not played in the white-ball format for a long time, besides, Riyan Parag, who showed rhythm last time, has just recovered from an injury. Besides, Rajasthan lacks credibility in terms of back-ups. Although 13-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi is trending, there is speculation about whether he can handle the pressure against international-level bowlers. Moreover, it is safe to say that there are no world-class batsmen in the team.
Lack of visible all-rounder in the team
The Rajasthan Royals team management spent a lot of money to buy pace attack and spin attack at the auction stage. However, Rahul Dravid may have forgotten that day that visible all-rounders are needed to win matches in the T20 format. Rajasthan Royals team does not have such a mature all-rounder. First of all, Riyan Parag can be seen as a batting all-rounder. However, although he has the ability to show with the bat, he will not be successful with the ball. Sri Lankan Wanendu Hasaranga can be seen as the only all-rounder in the team. Undoubtedly, he is one of the best spin bowlers in world cricket in this format, having played franchise cricket across the country and abroad. However, there is a question about how capable he will be with the bat. Although he is successful with the ball, he has scored only 72 runs in 14 innings with the bat on the IPL stage. His average in this league is only 7.20 and his strike rate is 98.63, which does not prove him to be an all-rounder.