Rally round RCB

Nevermind fairytale stories, the IPL can be a rocky road.

Expectations can be unreal as most cricketers will tell you. Fans won’t tolerate even 2 losses in a row, jumping in to offer advice based on 3 minutes of analysis to players who’ve been working on their game every day for the past 10 years or even more.

As a player you hear them out, they do want the best for you after all. You shrug and go back to work on the foot movement, the wrist and seam positions, the catching and relaying, the studying, the planning and the occasional secret praying.

There is a pressure to sustain absolute top notch performance over 8 weeks. Constant travel, commercial commitments and time away from family can hurt but the holy grail of an IPL win can wash over everything. The fruit of this hard work can be sweet, being the Champions of the Indian Premier League!

It sure hurts to be in the position we are in but looking at our past campaigns should help shed those fears. RCB has been one of the most consistent sides in the IPL league, without splurging in every auction, without being creative with rules. We let our record and our fans do the talking.

9 points from 10 games is less than 50% but it’s a long campaign. Many races are won in the last lap where many fall aside, either because they lack the skill or the spirit to carry on.

If how you start is half the job, how you finish is equally important. We start a tedious stretch on Sunday when we play DC at home. After that we are on the road for two big games against MI and PWI. We return home to host MI before going to Delhi and Hyderabad. At the end of it, we will have played 6 big games in 14 days and hopefully have won at least 4 of them.

I say hopefully because DD and MI are in stellar form, MI have a great deal of luck going for them too. DC are finding their rhythm, PWI are scrappy and neither will be an easy pushover. It is in such adversity that we have to stick by RCB, place our faith in them and support behind them.

Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers have been in terrific form but the team needs to rally around them and make sure their efforts don’t go in vain. We need to find our balance, our timing, our rhythm. The hunger to win is always there, it is time to hunt as one.

It is time we silence the critics and shut up the doubters, till the only sound left echoing is AaaaaaaaaarCeeeeeeeeeeBeeeeeeeeeeee!