RCB history since 2008
Royal Challengers Bangalore (often abbreviated as RCB) are a franchise cricket team based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). It was founded in 2008 by United Spirits and named after the company's liquor brand Royal Challenge.
The Royal Challengers have not won the IPL but finished runners-up on three occasions between 2009 and 2016. The team holds the records of both the highest and the lowest totals in the IPL – 263/5 and 49 respectively.[2][3]
Franchise history
In September 2007, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the establishment of the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition to be started in 2008.[4] The teams for the competition, representing 8 different cities of India, including Bangalore, were put up on auction in Mumbai on 20 February 2008. The Bangalore franchise was purchased by Vijay Mallya, who paid US$111.6 million for it. This was the second highest bid for a team, next only to Reliance Industries' bid of US$111.9 million for the Mumbai Indians.
The brand value of Royal Challengers Bangalore was estimated to be ₹595 crore (US$75 million) in 2019, according to a survey conducted by Duff & Phelp
Ahead of the 2008 player auction, the IPL named Rahul Dravid as the icon player for the Bangalore franchise, which meant that Dravid would be paid 15% more than the highest bid player at the auction. The franchise acquired a number of Indian and international players at the auction such as Jacques Kallis, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn and Cameron White. They also signed up Ross Taylor, Misbah-ul-Haq and India under-19 World Cup winning captain Virat Kohli in the second round of auction. The team won only 4 of the 14 matches in the inaugural season, finishing seventh in the eight-team table. Only Dravid managed to score more than 300 runs in the tournament and they had to even bench their costliest foreign player Kallis for a few of the matches due to his poor form.[6][7]The string of failures midway through the season led to the sacking of the CEO Charu Sharma, who was replaced with Brijesh Patel.[8] Team owner Vijay Mallya went on to publicly criticize Dravid and Sharma for the players selected by them at the auction and stated that his "biggest mistake was to abstain from the selection of the team."[8] Eventually the chief cricketing officer Martin Crowe resigned.[9]
At the 2009 player auction, the franchise signed up Kevin Pietersen for a record sum of US$1.55 million, making him the joint costliest player, along with fellow Englishman Andrew Flintoff who was signed up by the Chennai Super Kings for the same amount. They also traded Zaheer Khan for Robin Uthappa with the Mumbai Indians and also roped in local batsman Manish Pandey from them. Ahead of the tournament, which was shifted to South Africa due to the general elections, the Royal Challengers named Pietersen as the team captain for the season. Bangalore continued to struggle during the initial games of the 2009 season, winning only two of their first six games under the new captain. However, the team's fortunes improved after Pietersen left for national duty and Kumble took over the captaincy, as the team went on to win six of their remaining eight league games to finish third on the points table. The team qualified for the semifinal where they faced the Super Kings. Electing to field first, Bangalore restricted their opponents to 146 and chased down the total with 5 wickets in hand, thanks to 48 and 44 by Pandey and Dravid respectively. In the final against Deccan Chargers, the Royal Challengers bowlers, led by Kumble's 4 for 16, kept the Chargers down to 143/6. However, they struggled in the runchase, with only four batsmen reaching double figures, and lost the match by six runs in a tense finish.[citation needed]
In 2010, the Royal Challengers continued under Kumble's captaincy and finished the regular season with seven wins from 14 matches and 14 points. They were one of the four teams tied on 14 points with two semifinal spots at stake; they qualified for the semifinal as their net run rate was superior to those of the Delhi Daredevils and the Kolkata Knight Riders. In the semifinal, the Royal Challengers were defeated by the table-toppers Mumbai Indians by 35 runs. With a convincing nine-wicket win over defending champions Deccan Chargers in the third-place playoff, the Royal Challengers qualified for the 2010 Champions League Twenty20. Kumble retired at the conclusion of the Champions League, having led the team to the semifinals of both the IPL and the CLT20 that year.[citation needed]
2016: Dream Season
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In light of financial scandals involving owner/chairman Vijay Mallya, Amrit Thomas became the chairman of the Royal Challengers. RCB changed the team logo and also became the first team in IPL to adopt different jerseys for home and away matches. Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Mitchell Starc, David Wiese, Adam Milne, Varun Aaron, Mandeep Singh, Harshal Patel, Kedar Jadhav, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Aravind, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Abu Nechim were retained by RCB for the 2016 Indian Premier League. From player auctions, they bought Shane Watson for ₹9.5 crore (US$1.2 million), Kane Richardson and Stuart Binny for ₹2 crore each, and Travis Head and Samuel Badree for ₹50 lakhs each. Other players that joined the team were Sachin Baby, Iqbal Abdulla, Praveen Dubey, Akshay Karnewar, Vikramjeet Malik and Vikas Tokas. KL Rahul and Parvez Rasool also joined RCB for the IPL 2016 edition.
Royal Challengers Bangalore started their season with a blitz from AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli against SRH at Bangalore, to comfortably win their first match. A bludgeoning century from Quinton de Kock meant RCB lost their second match of the season. Their form deteriorated in the coming matches, winning only one match of the next five. Although, Virat Kohli and AB de Villier's brilliant form, along with the emergence of KL Rahul as an important member of RCB's batting, were positive points. Royal Challengers needed to win at least 6 of their next seven matches to have a chance at qualifying for the playoffs. They won matches against KXIP and Rising Pune Supergiant, the new entrant in the tournament. But a loss against Mumbai Indians meant they needed 4 wins in 4 matches to qualify. Since then, Virat Kohli found himself in a sublime form, with captaincy and the bat. RCB most notably defeated the Gujarat Lions by 144 runs, the highest margin in the IPL history, during this 4 match winning streak. Through other match results, RCB ended at an unlikely second position at the end of the league stage. Virat Kohli dominated the run-scoring list, while Shane Watson and Yuzvendra Chahal collectively topped the wicket taking list at the end of the league stage. They faced the Gujarat Lions in the Qualifier 1 at their home ground, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. They won by 4 wickets to make it to their third final in nine seasons. They played the final against SRH, again in Bangalore. RCB lost a hard-fought match by 8 runs, to end as runners up in this ninth season of the IPL. This is the third instance of RCB losing the final in the IPL. Yuzvendra Chahal and Shane Watson ended second and third respectively on the list for most wickets. At the launch event of his biography, 'Driven: The Virat Kohli Story' in New Delhi, in October 2016, Kohli discussed how loyalty was important to him and that he planned to never play for another IPL team.[10][11]
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