The unsung heroes in Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s rise to the summit Premium

Delhi Capitals' IPL journey, RCB's triumph, and the rise of bowlers in the tournament - a comprehensive review.

One of the oft-used cliches is that the IPL is a marathon, not a sprint. Delhi Capitals will ruefully agree – after all, they won their first four matches in a canter yet failed to make even a serious push for the Playoffs.

It’s also said regularly that while batters win matches, bowlers win tournaments. One need not look beyond Royal Challengers Bengaluru to understand exactly what that means.

On an emotional, dramatic Tuesday night in front of nearly 100,000 spectators at the gigantic Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the most passionate sports fans in the world were finally rewarded for loyalty when Rajat Patidar did what Rahul Dravid, Kevin Pietersen, Anil Kumble, Daniel Vettori, Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis before him had failed to accomplish. In his first season as the captain of the franchise, any franchise, the unassuming Madhya Pradesh batter took his team over the finish line, sparking waves of unchecked celebration throughout the night on the pothole-ridden streets of Bengaluru. After 17 unsuccessful attempts, RCB had finally shed the monkey off their back. There was unalloyed delight, of course, but also a huge sigh of relief. And the unmistakable air of having ‘done it for Virat’, in a throwback to 2011 when triumph at the 50-over World Cup in Mumbai was dedicated to the peerless Sachin Tendulkar.

Kohli was the obvious cynosure, like he always is when he takes the cricket field, and there is no mistaking his imprint on the march to the Promised Land. He topped 600 runs in an IPL season for the third time on the bounce, finishing with a franchise-high 657 runs. Only Orange Cap winner Sai Sudharsan (759) and the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, Suryakumar Yadav (717), boasted a higher tally. No one scored as many half-centuries (8) as the former India and RCB skipper and his strike-rate of 144.71 was a marked improvement on his overall IPL strike-rate of 132.86.

Alongside the effervescent Phil Salt, Kohli formed an exceptional opening pair. The Englishman, who had struck up an excellent alliance with Sunil Narine at the top of the tree when Kolkata Knight Riders won a third title last season, ended up with 403 runs, strike-rate 175.98. Until he pulled up lame with a hamstring injury deep into the league stage, Australian finisher Tim David had sent the RCB faithful into raptures by smashing 16 fours and 14 sixes in 101 deliveries to average 62.33 and strike at 185.14 runs per 100 balls faced, while Romario Shepherd became a household name after a 14-ball half-century (the joint second fastest in the tournament’s history) against Chennai Super Kings a month back.

Patidar himself and feisty, inventive wicketkeeper-batter Jitesh Sharma were the other batting heroes at various stages while local lads Devdutt Padikkal and his injury replacement Mayank Agarwal more than held their own, which meant that for the first time in their history, IPL weren’t reliant merely on their top three or four, as has been the case for much of their existence.

One of the reasons why RCB only made three finals in the first 17 years was because they didn’t have sustained firepower in their bowling. There would be the occasional high-performing asset – none more so than Yuzvendra Chahal – but one couldn’t shake off the feeling that RCB had been so fixated on their explosive top order which included Kohli (the only man to play for the same franchise for all 18 years) and at various stages Chris Gayle, A.B. de Villiers, Yuvraj Singh and Shane Watson that they didn’t quite pay the same attention to their bowling.