Royal Challengers Bangalore

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    About Royal Challengers Bangalore

    Bangalore are a famous franchise in the Indian T20 League that was founded in 2008 by United Spirits and named after the company's liquor brand Royal Challenge. Since its inception, the team has played its home matches at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. Notably, they have never won the Indian T20 League but finished runners-up on three occasions between 2009 and 2016. Their lack of success over the years despite the presence of various marquee players has earned them the tag of 'underachievers'.


    Till 2021, the team held the record of both the highest and the lowest totals in the Indian T20 League – 263/5 and 49 respectively and that's enough to tell you about the mercurial nature of Bangalore.


    In the inaugurating season, Indian legend Rahul Dravid was named as their captain but the franchise finished second from bottom and in the 2009 edition, which was played in South Africa, Anil Kumble was made captain. The team, having a good mix up youth and experience reached the finals where they fell short of the title against the now-defunct Deccan Chargers. In 2010, once again Bangalore qualified for the playoffs under the captaincy of Anil Kumble but got defeated by Mumbai in the semi-final. From 2011, Indian superstar Virat Kohli, who was on a meteoric rise was named skipper of the franchise and thus began the Kohli-Gayle-De Villiers era.


    Bangalore once again reached the playoffs in 2011 and found themselves in the final against southern rivals, Chennai, who got the better of them and won successive titles. Bangalore also qualified directly for the Champions League T20 and in doing so, became the only
    team to feature in all three editions of the tournament. The next couple of years, proved to be frustrating as Bangalore missed a berth in the playoffs by finishing 5th on both occasions. 2014 turned out to be even worse as for the first time since the first season, they finished in the bottom two as they ended 7th on the points table.


    2016 though was the year to remember for Bangalore and their skipper, Virat Kohli as he broke the record for the most runs scored in a single season Kohli led his side to the final with Gayle and de Villiers firing on all cylinders. However, they once again tanked in the final against Hyderabad. The subsequent season was the worst campaign of Bangalore's history as they finished rock bottom.


    In 2018, there was a complete overhaul of the squad with Chris Gayle leaving and a lot of other changes being made. The performance, however, did not improve much as the Red Brigade finished 6th this time around. The same pattern followed in the 2019 season as Bangalore finished bottom on the points table for the second time in three seasons.


    Since 2020, Bangalore got their MOJO back and put up strong performances. The one thing that changed from previous years was their bowling as they usually depended more on their firepower in batting. Bangalore qualified for the playoffs in both the 2020 and 2021 editions but couldn’t make it to the final. One big surprise came, when Virat Kohli announced that he will be stepping down from captaincy at the end of the 2021 campaign.


    Before the 2022 mega auction, Bangalore retained Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell and Mohammed Siraj and acquired the services of Faf du Plessis, Dinesh Karthik, Josh Hazlewood, Sherfane Rutherford, Jason Behrendorff, David Willey to name a few along with buying back Harshal Patel, Wanindu Hasaranga and Finn Allen.