‘Too much white noise’ – Brendon McCullum differentiates between CSK and RCB

Brendon McCullum, the former New Zealand cricketer, has tried to decipher the reasons behind the success of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as compared to the Royal Challengers. Baz has plied his trade for both teams and ended his career in the Indian Premier League (IPL), playing for Virat Kohli’s Challengers. His last IPL game was against MS Dhoni’s Super Kings itself back in May 2018.

McCullum, who has a couple of IPL tons under his belt, said that the Super Kings are loyal towards their players, a reason why they have played as a unit. The CSK have won the championship three times and have made the playoffs every other time. Even last year, they finished as the runners-up after Mumbai Indians, led by Rohit Sharma, defeated them by a solitary run in Hyderabad.

RCB chases a perfect team: Brendon McCullum

RCB, on the other hand, are yet to get their hands on the coveted trophy even once. They have played the finals twice in 2009 and 2016, but couldn’t cross the final hurdle. As per McCullum, the team has loads of ‘white noise’ and they don’t’ have a proper plan of how to proceed.

“One team gives selection loyalty and works on the team they have; the other chases a perfect team and doesn’t have a blueprint for how they are going to play. “CSK has very little “white noise” around them. RCB have too much,” McCullum was quoted as saying in Cricbuzz.

When CSK came back from their suspension period, they formed a team with a number of aged cricketers. The team got the name of ‘Dad’s Army’, but they came out all guns blazing and won the title in 2018. Shane Watson’s masterful knock in the final got them over the line.

The Challengers have boasted off some of the best in the business, including skipper Kohli, AB de Villiers, McCullum, Mitchell Starc, Moeen Ali, Shimron Hetmyer and many others. However, they have found themselves at the bottom of the points table on most instances.

In the previous auction, CSK retained most of the players and was the least active team. RCB did loads of work and also roped in Aaron Finch, the Australian limited-overs skipper, and a number of other talented cricketers.