Struggling Royal Challengers faces a stiff Sunrisers Hyderabad challenge

Royal Challengers Bangalore perhaps needs no reminding of that famous Greek legend when it gets ready to take on a behemoth in Sunrisers Hyderabad in an Indian Premier League match here on Monday. 

While Sunrisers is occupying a position in the table that gives it a bird’s eye view of the chasing pack, RCB has to contend with a not-so-desirable sixth in the pecking order.

The trouble is RCB is not only runsning out of ideas but also of that precious commodity called time as it halts at yet another pit stop in a bid to replenish its dwindling stocks. Another defeat in a season riddled with a string of dispiriting losses will leave RCB staring at the exit with all escape routes firmly shut.

Every year, the team from Bangalore is tagged as one of the front-runners to lift the crown, but invariably the coronation is put off to an unknown date much to the chagrin of its admirers, of which there are many.

This year seems to be no different as after having made all the right, and sometimes even loud, noises before the IPL began, RCB’s challenge tapered off with the team being undermined by bowling inadequacies. 

That is not to suggest that all its other parameters are beyond reproach as its decision to retain Sarfaraz Khan for an exorbitant sum of three crore has spectacularly boomeranged. Such has been the enormity of his failure that the 20-year-old is struggling to figure in the starting eleven and has come to be regarded as surplus to requirements. 

Changes in the team combination didn’t translate to change in RCB’s fortunes as it continues to dwell in that part of the table that most teams wouldn’t find appealing.

RCB skipper Virat Kohli has been reduced to watching his team’s plight helplessly, and on occasions even restlessly, but try as he may with all the might at his disposal he is unable to lift his team from the doldrums that it is mired in.

His counterpart on Monday, the erudite Kane Williamson hasn’t had the need to put on his thinking cap thanks in no small part to how his team responded to his clarion call of playing as one strong and cohesive unit instead of going on the scrounge for help from the same source.

Even in the absence of his pace ace Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the middle of the campaign, Williamson has had other options up his sleeve and he would be immensely pleased with how everyone has contributed at critical junctures. 

This being the penultimate home match of the season, Sunrisers would want to make sure that it doesn’t slacken in its approach or discipline and would want to extend its art of winning, no matter how dire the situation is.

SRH VS RCB @ 8 pm on Star Sports 1 & HD1