The 2016 IPL winning coach with Sunrisers Hyderabad, Tom Moody, explained that RCB will need a collective effort from all players and not depend alone on Virat Kohli to help them end their IPL title drought this year.
RCB will get their IPL 2024 campaign underway on the opening night of the season, on March 22, against the defending champions Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk. That game, as everyone is hoping, will mark the return of Virat Kohli to action since taking a break last month for the birth of his second child, a son, in London.
Tom Moody, who oversaw SRH’s IPL 2016 title win, which concluded with a win in the final against Virat Kohli’s RCB, reckons RCB need better efforts from other players should they intend to win their first-ever IPL trophy this year.
Virat Kohli is going to be in the leading run scorers: Tom Moody
Moody chipped in that Kohli will score the big runs as he regularly does, but even the superstar cricketer will need support from the other ten players in the side.
Speaking on Star Sports, Tom Moody said, “Virat Kohli – you would never question his quality and class, and there is no doubt he is going to be in the leading run scorers’ list in this IPL. But it’s going to take more than Virat Kohli for RCB to lift the trophy.
“He needs a collective effort at RCB for them to be champions this year. It’s not just going to be down to one person and his ability to score hundreds and hundreds of runs.”
Tom Moody made it clear that the worry for RCB is their bowling attack. Last season, RCB failed to reach the playoffs by a whisker, losing a must-win match to the Gujarat Titans despite scoring over 190 runs. Earlier in the season, they had also lost to Lucknow Super Giants even while scoring more than 210 runs.
The former SRH coach asserted: “My concern is not RCB scoring runs, it’s RCB restricting the opposition from scoring runs, them having the ability to shut teams down and to take wickets in key moments.”
RCB IPL 2024 squad:
Wicketkeepers: Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik.
batsmen: Faf du Plessis (C), Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Suyash Prabhudessai, Saurav Chauhan.
All-rounders: Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell (AUS), Manoj Bhandage, Tom Curran, Swapnil Singh, Will Jacks, Cameron Green
Bowlers: Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Karn Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Alzarri Joseph, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Mayank Dagar
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