IPL 2021: Rating the bench strength of each team

Royal Challengers Bangalore (7/10)

Probable Playing XI: Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli, M Azharuddeen, AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Kyle Jamieson, Mohammad Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal, Daniel Sams.

Main Bench Strength Players: Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson, Navdeep Saini, KS Bharat, Harshal Patel, Sachin Baby, Finn Allen, Dan Christian.

While the front-line playing XI of the RCB does look very lethal by holding a lot of sturdy proponents in both departments, in terms of its bench strength, the team reasonably looks insured. For the top-order batting, RCB only has wicket-keeper batsman KS Bharat who can chip in if there’s a requirement. In the middle-order, there’s only Sachin Baby who might extensively get juggled, in case if there’s a void to fill. However, the presence of Dan Christian in the playing XI will highly depend upon the RCB’s overseas pace bowling strategy. The team also has someone like Harshal Patel who can be picked in the lower-middle order if there’s an opening.

RCB’s reserve bowlers compared to their cover batting looks much more apt, as the presence of Adam Zampa along with Kane Richardson does tempt the team to start them in the main playing XI. Even someone like Navdeep Saini is an exciting reserve to have for the third pacer. However, a quality extra spinner would have helped RCB to have more depth in their bench strength.

All in all, with RCB playing its majority of matches on high-scoring grounds, the squad apparently does boast some fitting reserves in the bowling department. Whereas, in the batting department, the team might find itself bleak especially considering their husky frontline batting order.