Strength does not equate to success and no team understands that better than Royal Challenger Bangalore (RCB). Having gone 16 years without lifting a trophy, RCB are back to break the jinx in IPL 2024. They have once again assembled a pretty strong 25-man squad after picking up 6 players from the IPL 2024 auction. But is the squad good enough to break their IPL trophy jinx? Will Virat Kohli win his first-ever IPL title after 16 years in the league? These questions can only be answered by dissecting RCB squad as the IPL auction concludes.
RCB squad SWOT analysis
Strength
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s batting has always been their biggest strength. And so will it remain in the coming IPL 2024 edition. RCB already had a great batting lineup with Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Will Jacks, and Rajat Patidar in the squad.
They have further bolstered their batting and bowling by buying Cameron Green from the Mumbai Indians through a trade. The tall all-rounder had a great IPL 2023 and can bat from positions 1 to 5.
Weakness
The biggest cause of concern for the RCB management will be their bowling, in particular spin bowling. Although they have four spinners in the squad (Karn Sharma, Mayank Dagar, Himanshu Sharma, and Swapnil Singh), they have taken just 70 wickets in 80 matches. Out of these, only Karn Sharma has been a regular for any IPL side.
Opportunities
RCB’s new pace bowling crop of Lockie Ferguson and Alzarri Joseph, along with Mohammed Siraj and Reece Topley, can prove to be lethal. Two batters who couldn’t leave their mark last season, Rajat Patidar and Dinesh Karthik, can also come good for the Challengers.
Patidar was out of the squad last season due to injury, while Karthik had a forgetful season where he scored just 140 runs at 11.67 in 13 matches.
Threats
The biggest roadblocks between RCB and the IPL trophy are national duties for foreign players and the possibility of the league moving out of India.
With the Indian general elections likely to be held in April–May, the chances of the IPL moving out of India are high. Foreign players like Will Jacks, Cameron Green, Reece Topley, and Lockie Ferguson can miss part of the league due to national duties with the T20 World Cup 2024 in focus on the cricketing boards.
RCB Full Squad
Faf du Plessis (c), Virat Kohli, Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Suyash Prabhudessai, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Anuj Rawat (wk), Cameron Green, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Manoj Bhandage, Tom Curran, Swapnil Singh, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Rajan Kumar, Alzarri Joseph, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Karn Sharma, Mayank Dagar, Himanshu Sharma, Saurav Chauhan.
