About Royal Challengers in , Gandhinagar

Royal Challengers Bangalore (often abbreviated as RCB) is a cricket team based in Bangalore, Karnataka that plays in the Indian Premier League. The team is currently led by Virat Kohli[1] and coached by South African Ray Jennings. The team is owned by Vijay Mallya, through his flagship firm UB Group.[2] The director of the team is Sidhartha Mallya.[3][4] RCB plays its home matches at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The RCB team usually looks promising on paper but has managed to reach the playoffs/semi-finals only in 3 of the 6 IPLs so far. They hold the joint record for most consecutive victories in the IPL having won 7 matches on the trot in the 2011 edition. The team has also qualified and played in all the seasons of the Champions League Twenty20
Franchise history

Indian Premier League is a cricket tournament being organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and backed by the International Cricket Council (ICC).[5] For the inaugural tournament held in April–June 2008, the BCCI had finalised a list of 8 teams who will be participating in the tournament. The teams representing 8 different cities of India, including Bangalore, were put up on auction in Mumbai on 20 February 2008 and the Bangalore team was won by Vijay Mallya, who paid US$111.6 million for it. This was the second highest bid for a team in the IPL, next only to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries' bid of $111.9 million for the Mumbai team. Bollywood actresses Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone, and Sandalwood film stars Ramya and Puneeth Rajkumar are the brand ambassadors of the team.[6]
2008 IPL season
Main article: 2008 Indian Premier League
The team won only 4 matches in the inaugural season, losing 10 matches and finishing second from the bottom in the table. Only one of their batsmen, Rahul Dravid, managed to score more than 300 runs in the tournament and they had to even bench their costliest foreign player, Jacques Kallis, for a few of the matches due to his poor form.[7][8] The string of failures mid-way through the season led to the sacking of the CEO, Charu Sharma who was replaced with Brijesh Patel.[9] Even coach Venkatesh Prasad was reportedly about to be sacked, but he saved his job by publicly apologising for the team's failure. Vijay Mallya went on to publicly criticise Dravid and Sharma for the failures by saying that they had not selected the right team. He regretted that he had made a mistake by not getting involved in the selection of the team.[9] They were the only team in the IPL to try out 11 opening combinations in 14 games. Eventually the chief cricketing officer, Martin Crowe resigned.[10] It was decided that from 2009 IPL session onwards the team would be coached by former South Africa coach Ray Jennings.
2009 IPL season
Main article: 2009 Indian Premier League
The team started with a win against defending champions Rajasthan Royals but quickly went on to lose the next six games under the captaincy of Kevin Pietersen. However, he had to leave for national duty and captaincy was taken over by former Indian Test captain Anil Kumble. The team fortunes reversed and they beat Deccan Chargers to secure a 3rd place after the round robin stage. In the semi final they beat the Chennai Super Kings convincingly, who were led by M S Dhoni and crushed their hopes of winning the title. However they lost the final by 6 runs, in a close match to Deccan Chargers. Also Manish Pandey became the first Indian to score a century in IPL when he made 114* (73) against Deccan Chargers in their last match in the league phase. Anil Kumble also had a very good economy rate in the tournament which was held in South Africa.
2010 IPL season
Main article: 2010 Indian Premier League
Challengers had a mixed round of success in the third edition of the IPL. The team slumped to a defeat in their first match against the Knight Riders but came back strongly to win the next four games which started off with the highest successful run chase in IPL 2010 and the second highest successful run chase in IPL history against Kings XI Punjab at Bangalore. This win was followed by comprehensive wins against the Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings. Kallis and Uthappa were in tremendous form with the bat, while Kumble was miserly with the ball, Steyn fast and accurate and Vinay Kumar wily picking wickets at the right time. However, the team lost the next two games and after a roller coaster ride, managed to sneak into the semis for the second consecutive season by virtue of their healthy net run rate beating Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders both of whom had equal number of wins and losses as the Bangalore outfit. In the semifinal, RCB put on a shoddy display after beginning well and conceded 77 runs during the last 5 overs of the Mumbai innings. The chase never took off and they went on to lose the match by 35 runs. The team had the final laugh after they comprehensively beat the defending champions Deccan Chargers, against whom they lost the previous year's final by 9 wickets. RCB finished the season in third position and thereby booked a slot in the 2010 Champions League Twenty20.
2011 IPL season
Main article: 2011 Indian Premier League
RCB kicked off their campaign with a comfortable six-wicket win over the newly formed team, Kochi Tuskers Kerala. But then they suffered three big defeats at the hands of Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers and Chennai Super Kings. At this stage, speedster Dirk Nannes was ruled out of the tournament and RCB team management named West Indian opener Chris Gayle as his replacement.Gayle, who was in the highest reserve price tag ($400,000), found no bidders thinking that he would be unavailable for the IPL T20 league as West Indies team had Pakistan tournament during the same period. But with the West Indies selectors leaving out Gayle along with other senior players Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan for the first two matches of the ODI series against Pakistan, RCB have signed up the explosive batsman for their team.Gayle started off the tournament with a century (102* off 55 balls) against Kolkata Knight Riders, giving the Challengers an emphatic 9-wicket win. RCB also managed to beat Delhi Daredevils and Pune Warriors in their next two matches. They went on to beat Kings XI Punjab by a big margin of 85 runs, after Gayle smashed his second century of the tournament (107 off 49 balls). They won their next two matches against Kochi and Rajasthan Royals, both comprehensively by 9 wickets. They also defeated Kolkata in a rain-affected match at Bangalore. But then, Kings XI Punjab, riding on a blistering hundred by their skipper Adam Gilchrist, ended RCB's 7-match winning streak, with a huge 111-run margin win. In their last league match, the Challengers beat the defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 8 wickets to end at the top of the points table. Chris Gayle shining once again with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 75 off 50 balls.
Royal Challengers faced Chennai Super Kings in the 1st qualifier at Mumbai. Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 70 off just 44 balls to help RCB put up 175/4 in their 20 overs. Despite losing early wickets, Chennai went on to win the match by 6 wickets. The win took Chennai to the final and RCB faced Mumbai Indians in the 2nd qualifier in Chennai. Batting first, Royal Challengers made a massive 185/4 in 20 overs on a slow Chepauk track. Chris Gayle was the star once again for them as he scored a blistering 89 runs off 47 balls. Mumbai never looked in the hunt for a win as they collapsed to a 43-run defeat. The Royal Challengers qualified for the finals with this win and went on to face Chennai at their home ground in the finals. Winning the toss, Chennai elected to bat first in the finals. The Super Kings posted a huge total of 205/5. The Challengers did not bat well and lost the match by 4 wickets. Chris Gayle was named Man of the Tournament and Bangalore set a new IPL record for the most successive wins by winning 7 matches on the trot.
2012 IPL season
Main article: 2012 Indian Premier League
Royal Challengers Bangalore began the 2012 IPL without the services of talisman Chris Gayle who had arrived in India carrying a groin injury he had sustained in the preceding Bangladesh Premier League. Sreenath Aravind, RCB’s most successful bowler in 2011 too was laid low by injury and Harshal Patel emerged as the preferred third seamer in the side ahead of Abhimanyu Mithun.
AB de Villiers and Muttiah Muralitharan gave the team a winning start against Delhi but 3 consecutive losses followed. One of them saw the team concede a 200+ total off the last ball in Chennai while Ajinkya Rahane’s ton at Bangalore included 6 fours in a single over from Aravind. The team rallied back, Chris Gayle finding his touch to hit 5 consecutive sixes off Rahul Sharma and Saurabh Tiwary hitting a six off the last ball to win the team a tight chase against Pune. Gayle shone again at Mohali in a comprehensive win while de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan and KP Appanna engineered another win in Jaipur.
A washed out match at Bangalore against Chennai denied the team a chance at gaining 2 points outright, the teams sharing points 1-1 each. Two subsequent losses put RCB in competition with Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab for the last play-offs slot.
Virat Kohli’s inexplicable lean run in the tournament, underperformance from local uncapped players and the four overseas players limit were some of the hurdles faced by the team.
Daniel Vettori benched himself so the team could play Muttiah Muralitharan as one of the four foreigners allowed in the playing XI, Virat Kohli taking up captaincy duties. The team signed Prasanth Parameswaran who played for Kochi Tuskers Kerala in the 2011 IPL as a replacement for the injured Sreenath Aravind.
A spectacular chase against Deccan Chargers at Bangalore and two routs in Mumbai and Pune put the team back on track for a place in the play-offs. RCB went down to Mumbai in a hard fought match at Bangalore but bounced back in Delhi as Chris Gayle became the first man to hit 3 centuries in the IPL, hitting 128*at Delhi.
Other results in the tournament now placed RCB in direct competition with Chennai for the final play-offs slot. The teams were tied on points with Chennai ahead on Net Run Rate but RCB had a game in hand while Chennai had played out their games. A batting failure at Hyderabad in RCB’s final game of the season led to the end of the team’s 2012 campaign, making it the first time since 2009 that they failed to qualify for both the play-offs and the Champions League.
Chris Gayle was the highest run scorer of the tournament for the second year in the row, scoring 733 runs at 61.08 with 7 fifties, 1 hundred and a strike rate of 160.74. Vinay Kumar finished as the 5th highest wicket taker of the tournament with his 19 wickets from 17 matches.
Livery

Vijay Mallya wanted to associate one of his top-selling liquor brands, either No. 1 McDowell's or Royal Challenge with the team.[11] The latter was chosen, hence the name. The jersey colours of the team are red and golden yellow, the same as the Karnataka state flag,[12] and the logo consists of the RC emblem with "Royal Challengers Bangalore" in standard format.
The theme song of the team for the 2008 season was Jeetenge Hum Shaan Se. The team anthem, Game for More was created for the 2009 season. The music was composed by Amit Trivedi and written by Anshu Sharma for RediffusionY&R, Bangalore. This continues to be the anthem for the team through the matches until date.
Players

1st IPL Auction
The players in the team (except for Rahul Dravid, who was the Icon Player), were selected in an auction conducted by ICC on 20 February 2008. South Africa's Jacques Kallis at $900,000 became the costliest player to be selected to play for the Royal Challengers. This meant that Rahul Dravid, being the Icon Player would be paid $1,035,000 (15% more than the highest bid player in the team). Other players selected included the then Indian Test cricket captain Anil Kumble along with his team-mates Praveen Kumar and Zaheer Khan, West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Aussies Nathan Bracken and Cameron White, South Africa's Mark Boucher (Wicket Keeper) and Dale Steyn. The team also included Pakistan cricket team's vice captain Misbah-ul-Haq although he wasn't in the playing 11 for most part of the tournament.
2nd IPL Auction
Kevin Pietersen made his way into RCB as one of the costliest players in IPL . Kevin Pietersen was valued at $1.55m over a base price of $1.35m. Also Jesse Ryder from New Zealand was acquired in the auction at $160,000. On the last day of the 2008–2009 transfer window, Zaheer Khan was swapped with Robin Uthappa of Mumbai Indians, with no money exchanged. The team also acquired Karnataka batsman Manish Pandey from Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan fast bowler Pankaj Singh from Rajasthan Royals. The team also signed Eagles fast bowler Dillon du Preez as a replacement for Zaheer Khan.
3rd IPL Auction
Challengers were among the least active during the 2010 auction by signing English-Irish batsman Eoin Morgan for $220,000 as the only acquisition.
4th IPL Auction
On 8 January 2011, IPL Governing Council held the auction for the season 4 of the league. The franchises had the option of retaining a maximum of four players for a sum of $4.5mn. Royal Challengers however retained only one of their player in Virat Kohli leaving the rest of the players back in the auction pool. When other IPL franchises let go the non-performers from each of their teams, RCB lost the top performers from the previous season by releasing them back to auction pool. On Day-One of the auction, Bangalore bought Sri Lankan Tillakaratne Dilshan for $650,000, their former player and Mumbai Indians spearhead Zaheer Khan for $900,000, South Africa's ace middle order batsman AB de Villiers for $1.1mn, former New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori for $550,000, India's new sensation, who played with Mumbai Indians until last season, Saurabh Tiwary for a whopping $1.6mn; Australia's Dirk Nannes for $650,000 and India's young talent Cheteshwar Pujara for $700,000. West Indian batsman Chris Gayle was brought in as a replacement for the injured Dirk Nannes in the middle of the tournament. Former New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori led the side for the fourth season of the IPL. 5th IPL auction RCB had bought only vinay kumar for 1 million usd and muttiah muralitharan for 220,200 ud
Pre-Season Transfer Window for IPL 2012 [edit]
In the pre-season transfer window Royal Challengers Bangalore transferred Australian allrounder Andrew McDonald[13] to Royal Challengers Bangalore from Delhi Daredevils. RCB paid US$100,000 as transferred fees. Royal Challengers Bangalore also retained Chris Gayle for the next two IPL seasons.
Captaincy
Vijay Mallya, the owner of Bangalore Royal Challengers, had kept the captaincy options open. Minutes after picking up Kevin Pietersen at USD 1.55 million, Mallya said he was happy with the price he got him at. "The captaincy options are open. The team management will take a decision on it." The Royal Challengers, who finished second to last the previous year, were led by Rahul Dravid. On 21 March 2009 Vijay Mallya announced that Kevin Pietersen was replacing Rahul Dravid as the team captain for the 2009 season. The reason given was Dravid's absence in the league due to family related reasons.[14] However many suspect that the change in captaincy is the result of the poor performance of the team in the first season of the Indian Premier League. On 30 April 2009, Anil Kumble was named the captain of the team for the remaining games of the IPL Season 2, due to Kevin Pietersen's absence to play for England against the West Indies. Since then performance of Royal Challengers Bangalore has been instrumental and the turnaround has been superb. The challengers found great success under Kumble's leadership. Kumble retired after leading RCB to the semis of both CLT20 and IPL-3.Daniel Vettori is the captain of RCB since IPL-4, and led RCB to the finals of both IPL-4 and CLT20. However, RCB faced consecutive defeats, so Kohli became the captain of RCB in 2013, replacing Vettori.
Champions League Twenty20

Main article: Champions League Twenty20
The Champions League Twenty20 is an international Twenty20 cricket competition between clubs from India, Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies. The competition was launched in 2008 as a response to the success of national Twenty20 domestic cricket leagues, most notably the Indian Premier League. The Royal Challengers are the only IPL team to have played in all three editions of the Champions League.
2009 season
Main article: 2009 Twenty20 Champions League
On account of emerging as the runners-up of the 2009 season of the Indian Premier League, the team participated in the inaugural edition of the T20 Champions League, along with two other Indian teams; the winners of IPL 2009, Deccan Chargers and Delhi Daredevils, who were the table toppers at the end of the league stage.
They had a limited success in the tournament being placed in Group C for their first round. They lost to Cape Cobras in their first match but came back strongly to comprehensively beat Otago Volts, to enter the second round. The results from the pairings during the first round were carried forward to the league stage hence the Royal Challengers eventually crashed out from the second round after finishing with 2 points from 3 matches which included a loss to the Victorian Bushrangers, a victory over the Delhi Daredevils and the loss against the Cape Cobras carried forward from the first round.
2010 season
Main article: 2010 Champions League Twenty20
The Royal Challengers having beaten Deccan Chargers at the third-place play-off qualified for the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 along with Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. The Challengers along with Victoria Bushrangers and Wayamba Elevens were the only sides to make it to the tournament twice.
After victories in the warm-up games, the Royal Challengers started off their campaign on a winning note by defeating Guyana. However they were humbled in their next game against the South Australian Redbacks. They also lost their next game against IPL rivals Mumbai Indians despite a mighty effort from Rahul Dravid. However, the Challengers made it to the semi-finals after beating the Highveld Lions, thanks to a superior NRR compared to the Highveld Lions and Mumbai Indians.
The Royal Challengers played their rain-hit semi-final against the IPL champions Chennai Super Kings who had topped Group A. The injury hit Challengers eventually lost the match by 52 runs (D/L method) and bowed out of the tournament as losing semi-finalists.
2011 season
Main article: 2011 Champions League Twenty20
Royal Challengers Bangalore qualified for the main event of the 2011 Champions League Twenty20 as they finished runners-up in the 2011 Indian Premier League, this made the Challengers the first and only team ever to play in all the three seasons of the tournament. The Challengers, placed in Group B in the first round of the tournament, kicked of their quest for glory with a last-ball defeat to the Warriors. They suffered a big 9-wicket defeat at the hands of IPL counterparts Kolkata Knight Riders in their second group match, leaving them with two must-win matches in order to qualify for the semi-finals. They registered their first win in the competition, in emphatic manner, by beating Somerset by 51 runs, thanks to Chris Gayle's 46-ball 86. The win also consolidated their poor net run-rate. In their last group match, they faced the champions from Australia, the Southern Redbacks. Batting first, the Redbacks rode on a century by Daniel Harris (108* from 61 balls) to set RCB a target of 215. The Royal Challengers came out with a spirited batting performance with Tillakaratne Dilshan and Virat Kohli scoring half-centuries. However, the Redbacks hampered the run-chase by picking up wickets at regular stages towards the end of the innings. With six runs required off the last ball to win the match, RCB found an unlikely-hero in Arun Karthik, who struck Daniel Christian for a six over deep mid-wicket, to take RCB through to the semi-finals. The Challengers, despite being level on points with Kolkata Knight Riders and Warriors, qualified for the semis on basis of having a better net run-rate than the two teams.
The Royal Challengers played the New South Wales Blues in the semi-finals of the tournament. Winning the toss, Daniel Vettori put the Blues in to bat and the decision seemed to backfire as the Blues amassed 203/2 in 20 overs, mainly due to the efforts of David Warner who struck an unbeaten 123 off just 68 balls. Despite losing Dilshan early in the chase, RCB got off to a rollicking start with Chris Gayle smashing 92 runs from only 41 deliveries. He was ably supported by Kohli, who struck an unbeaten 84 from 49 balls to give RCB a comfortable 6-wicket victory with 9 balls to spare.
They took on an injury-hit Mumbai Indians in the final at Chennai. Mumbai winning the toss, chose to bat and put up a modest total of 139 in 20 overs. After getting off to a blistering start with the bat, the Challengers lost wickets at regular intervals before getting bundled out for 108 in 19.2 overs, falling short of the target by 31 runs. Mumbai skipper Harbhajan Singh was awarded the Man of the Match for picking 3/20 in his four ov