AGENCY
NEW DELHI, Apr 1
Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) start in IPL 2025 has opened the rare possibility of starting the season with three straight wins, a feat they’ve achieved only once, in 2021. Ahead of their first home game of the year, team director Mo Babat emphasised the importance of a “statement start,” even if their record at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium has been patchy over the last two years.
“We’ve definitely tried to focus in those first couple of games at making a statement start,” Bobat said ahead of Wednesday’s match against Gujarat Titans (GT). “Because going to two big teams [Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings] with good and proud home records is a good challenge. So, we use that as something to motivate the group. Similarly, we want to come back here [Chinnaswamy] and motivate the group to put on a show in front of their own fans.”
One issue of RCB at home has been their bowling performances, despite trying to build a strong bowling core every year. Bobat, though, feels the line-up for this season is different.
“We’ve recruited a team that we think is pretty powerful, with the batting line-up which we hope can exploit those batting conditions,” he said. “And we think we’ve got a bowling attack that’s particularly skillful and that can deal with the challenge of bowling here. Attacking here but also defending here.
“So that’s been our focus from the moment we started trying to assemble our squad. And the way we played in the first two games, we’re building good confidence in those two areas with our powerful batting and skillful bowling.”
This season, RCB have been thrown a scheduling challenge: they don’t play two consecutive home games until the league phase ends. Bobat does not think it is an issue, but stressed on the importance of keeping his players fresh during the stretch of seven games across 22 days in the middle. Two senior fast bowlers, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood, will be carefully handled. Bhuvneshwar missed the opener due to a minor niggle, while Hazlewood has only just recovered from a hip injury after battling side strain and calf issues during Australia’s Test summer.
“He [Bhuvneshwar] probably could have played that first game if we really wanted him to, but we didn’t want to put him at risk,” Bobat said. “Josh came off the back of an injury with Cricket Australia, but they managed that pretty conservatively and then handed him over to us and we finished that rehab here. So, they’re both in a good place now.
“It’s likely we’re going to have to think about keeping players fresh through the middle. I think that’s obvious. But right now, every game is important, so we’re not thinking too far ahead. We’ll take it on a day by day, week by week basis.
“If you look at us, relative to probably other teams, we’ve not had too many soft-tissue injuries. [We aim to] try and keep them on the park because we know how good they are.
If they end up needing a bit of a rest, we’re pretty relaxed about that too, because we’ve got a really good squad.”
While the strong start has excited fans, Bobat emphasised on a single-minded focus on the next game. “We feel like we’ve got clarity on our strongest team,” he said. “If we play to our potential, the results take care of themselves. And you’ve just got to repeat that for 14 group games. And hopefully with some knockout games. We don’t really look beyond that.”
‘Patidar has been very impressive’
Rajat Patidar’s leadership in his debut season as IPL captain has also impressed Bobat, touching upon his authentic personality and tactical strength.
“The main thing you want to see from any leader or captain is typically that they continue to let their personality come across. And I think he’s done that really well,” Bobat said. “We don’t want him to become a captain and be anybody else. We want him to be himself so, very calm, inwardly and outwardly. He rarely, if ever, takes a backward step. And we’ve seen that with his batting, particularly against CSK. Every time we lost wickets he continued to throw punches, which was really good.
“And he seems to have coped with all the other stuff that comes with captaincy really well as well in some busy times. So, at the minute I think he’s been excellent. He’s done everything I hoped and expected him to be. We know it’s early days.
“There’s a lot of cricket left to be played. And no doubt we’ll have some challenges at some point in the season. That’ll be a time where we’ve really got to be there to support him. But at the minute he’s been very impressive.”
