Katich, Hesson keen to turn around Virat Kohli-led RCB's fortunes

Simon Katich and Mike Hesson

The last three IPL seasons have been nothing short of disastrous for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. While they finished at the bottom in the 2017 and 2019 editions, Virat Kohli's team were placed sixth in 2018. This is in stark contrast from their 2016 outing where they finished runners-up.

Although the team is packed with many superstars that makes them stand out at least on paper, on the field they have hardly looked threatening. Having five opening combinations in the last IPL and constant tinkering of the playing XI have not helped RCB to go into a match looking settled.

A balanced squad for the IPL-13 (September 19 to November 10) is one of the topmost factors head coach Simon Katich and director of cricket, Mike Hesson are trying to address this season. "We spent a lot of time on the kind of squad we want, how it looks and what kind of game we want to play. We are very much aware about the history and we have gone for a very balanced squad which is strong in all conditions. We have a new group, a new set-up and hopefully it is going to allow us to play the kind of cricket we want," Hesson said during a virtual media interaction on Wednesday.

Bowling in the death overs has been RCB's achilles heel especially in the last few seasons. It was one of the reasons why Kohli's men lost games as they failed to stop teams from chasing. With the signing of Chris Morris, Isuru Udana, Kane Richardson and Dale Steyn, Hesson believes they have a bowling unit that can stop runs from leaking. "We were very clear about our death bowling and wanted to make sure we got that covered. We went into the auction wanting to fix that. We got [Yuzvendra] Chahal, who is an exceptional bowler and a nice mix of spinners [Shahbaz Nadeem, Pawan Negi and Moeen Ali]. We think we are not so reliant on our batting and have a balanced unit," said Hesson.

With the IPL being played overseas and no home and away concept, Katich felt it will be quite different not to enjoy the batting-friendly M Chinnaswamy Stadium track. "The conditions are going to be a bit similar to India. Obviously, to play half of our games at Chinnaswamy, a very good batting wicket...so that might be the slight difference here in the UAE. The history of some of these grounds here indicates that the par score might be slightly lower," he said.

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