Kamal Ghorui
BENGALURU: A week can feel like a reset button in a long tournament. For Royal Challengers Bengaluru, that pause may have come at just the right time. After a rare stumble at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium this season, RCB are set to play their last league match here on Friday, hoping the break has steadied the rhythm rather than stalled it.“It’s quite nice to have some days off after the last game because it didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” said Mo Bobat, RCB’s director of cricket, reflecting on the team’s reset. The short breather allowed players to step away before returning to a more measured week of preparation.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!“On the third day, we had a session with a lot of the guys who haven’t been playing. It’s nice in a week like this to give those boys a bit of love and some time in the middle,” he added, underlining the importance of keeping the entire squad engaged. According to the Englishman, in a long tournament, being positioned among the top teams does not give any sense of comfort. “It’s pleasing to have four wins. We’d obviously rather not have the two defeats,” he said, pointing to the tight nature of the competition.“You can win one game and move up a lot or lose one and drop down. We’re not looking at the table too much—we just want to win this next game.”Much of RCB’s consistency has come under the calm, assertive leadership of Rajat Patidar. “We plan with aggressive tactics, but Rajat makes the decisions out there and he’s very good at that,” Bobat noted. “One of his biggest strengths is how calm he is. Even in chaotic moments, he backs his instincts.”With this marking their final home fixture, RCB are aware of the shift ahead. “We’re on the road quite a lot after this,” Bobat said. “We won’t see much of Bengaluru, which is a bit of a shame,” he added.
