The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 is still a few days away, however, the first controversy of the season has already popped up. Former New Zealand all-rounder, Scott Styris has taunted the Indian team management for using so many bowlers from Royal Challengers Bangalore squad.
Co-incidentally, the current Indian T20I skipper, Virat Kohli is also the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL hence, Styris hinted that there was favoritism prevailing in the team selection.
In case you did not know, the Indian T20I squad for the series against Sri Lanka has four bowlers from RCB namely Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, and Yuzvendra Chahal. The first three players donned the blue jersey in the second T20I of the series at Holkar Stadium in Indore.
It is a known fact that the bowling unit of Royal Challengers Bangalore is billed as the worst in the IPL. Despite having the likes of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in the squad, the Bangalore-based IPL franchise is yet to win its maiden IPL championship.
The story of their campaign has been that the batsmen pile up mountains of runs however, the bowlers give away those runs easily. Thus, Royal Challengers Bangalore had finished at the last position on the points table in IPL 2019.
I’m a little surprised India have gone into this match with THREE @RCBTweets bowling options plus Y Chahal in reserve when theyve been consistently the worst @IPL bowling side over the last couple of seasons ?
— Scott Styris (@scottbstyris) January 7, 2020
Although three bowlers from Royal Challengers Bangalore were a part of the T20I in Indore, India won the contest with ease. In fact, Navdeep Saini shone the brightest for the Indian team as he picked up figures of 2/18 in 4 overs. Also, Washington Sundar was the one who helped India take the first wicket.
The Indian fans have hit back at Scott Styris by saying that the team management is trying out a bunch of players for T20 World Cup 2020 and some fans have even argued that the bowlers who have the experience of bowling on the flat track of M. Chinnaswamy Stadium could easily bowl well at Holkar Stadium also.
Here’s how Twitterati reacted:
And both the RCB bowlers took wickets
Especially saini who bowled 3-16-1 pic.twitter.com/vMitLR1MXp— paani (@vinivinci97) January 7, 2020
They are experimenting, its not about winning with your best combination, its identifying key players from the pool of available player for backup options to #worldt20
— Karthik Gangadhar (@karthikg1643) January 7, 2020
If a bowler has experience of bowling in #T20 at Chinnaswamy, he can bowl well in any stadium ?
— Srinivasa B (@SrinivasaB53) January 7, 2020
https://twitter.com/AmitPar89717247/status/1214558831243513857
