Royal Challengers Bangalore

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (often abbreviated as RCB) are a franchise cricket team based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). One of the original eight teams in the IPL, the team has made three final appearances in the IPL, losing all (in 2009 to the Deccan Chargers, in 2011 to the Chennai Super Kings and in 2016 to the Sunrisers Hyderabad). The team also finished runners-up in the 2011 CLT20, losing the final against the Mumbai Indians.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

File:Royal Challengers Bangalore Logo 2016.svg
League	Indian Premier League
Personnel
Captain	Virat Kohli
Coach	Daniel Vettori
Owner	United Spirits
Team information
City	Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Colors	(home) (away)
Founded	2008
Home ground	M. Chinnaswamy Stadium (Capacity: 40,000)
Secondary home ground(s)	0
History
Indian Premier League wins	0
CLT20 wins	0
Official website	royalchallengers.com
Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2018 Home kit Away kit

The home ground of the Royal Challengers is the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.^[1] The team is currently captained by Virat Kohli and coached by Daniel Vettori.^[2][3] The team holds the records of both the highest and the lowest total in the IPL (263/5 and 49).

Indian Premier League is a cricket tournament organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and backed by the International Cricket Council (ICC).^[4] 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 owned 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 Reliance Industries Ltd.'s bid of $111.9 million for the Mumbai Indians team.

2008 season

The players in the team (except for Rahul Dravid, who was the Icon Player), were selected in an auction conducted by BCCI 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 teammates 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.

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.^[5][6] The string of failures midway through the season led to the sacking of the CEO, Charu Sharma who was replaced with Brijesh Patel.^[7] 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.^[7] 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.^[8] It was decided that from 2009 IPL session onwards the team would be coached by former South Africa coach Ray Jennings,.

2009 season

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.

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.^[9] 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.

The team started with a win against defending champions Rajasthan Royals but quickly went on to lose a few 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. At the end of round robin stage RCB had played 14 matches out of which they won 8 and lost 6 with total points of 16. 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 season

Challengers were among the least active during the 2010 auction by signing English-Irish batsman Eoin Morgan for $220,000 as the only acquisition.

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.

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.

Kumble retired after leading RCB to the semis of both CLT20 and IPL-3.

2011 season

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 players, 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, Netherlands' Ryan ten Doeschate for $400,000, and 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. Vettori led the side for the fourth season of the IPL.

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 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.

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 off 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 overs.

2012 season

In the pre-season transfer window Royal Challengers Bangalore transferred Australian allrounder Andrew McDonald^[10] from Delhi Daredevils. RCB paid US$100,000 as transferred fees. Royal Challengers Bangalore also retained Chris Gayle for the next two IPL seasons.

Before the auction RCB had got Andrew McDonald transferred from Delhi Daredevils. They had also bought out the contracts of Johan Van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar and Nuwan Pradeep. In the auction RCB bought only vinay kumar for $1 million and Muttiah Muralitharan for $220,200.

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. 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 a 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.

2013 season

Before the auction RCB released Mohammad Kaif, Charl Langeveldt, Dirk Nannes, Luke Pomersbach and Rilee Rossouw. At the auction RCB bought Christopher Barnwell, Daniel Christian, Moisés Henriques, Ravi Rampaul, Pankaj Singh, R. P. Singh and Jaydev Unadkat. RCB kicked off their campaign by winning their first 6 home games starting with a 2 run win over Mumbai Indians where Chris Gayle scored 92* off 58 balls and Vinay Kumar picking up 3 wickets. But they suffered a super-over defeat to newly formed Sunrisers Hyderabad but then they beat the same opponents convincingly by 6 wickets where Virat Kohli smashed a brilliant 93*.They also beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 8 wickets. Gayle and Kohli were in tremendous form with the bat while Vinay Kumar was the hero with ball. RCB suffered a shock in the next match against Chennai Super Kings where R.P.Singh conceded a no-ball of the last ball of the match which was a catch.However,the team rallied back to win their next 3 games.One of the matches against Pune Warriors India saw Chris Gayle smash 175 off just 66 balls which was the highest individual score in T20 cricket and RCB put up 263-5 which was the highest total in T20 cricket. Pune never fought back in the chase and eventually lost the match by 130 runs. People often nickname Bangalore as "Ban-gayle-ore". However,the team began to lose matches away from home.One of the matches against Punjab saw David Miller score 101 off just 38 balls to guide Punjab to an unlikely victory. RCB only managed to beat Pune Warriors India and Delhi Daredevils away from home. They were now in direct competition with Sunrisers Hyderabad with 16 points from 13 matches who were also with 16 points from 13 matches.A batting failure against Kolkata and a poor fielding and bowling performance against Punjab at Bangalore left RCB in a do or die situation in their last league match against Chennai Super Kings at Bangalore. Fortunately, RCB registered a stunning win in their last match which was affected by rain. Now, RCB could only qualify for playoffs if Kolkata would beat Hyderabad. Unfortunately, Sunrisers Hyderabad won the match convincingly by 5 wickets which ended RCB's 2013 campaign. Chris Gayle was the leading run scorer for the team, scoring 708 runs and Vinay Kumar was the leading wicket taker by taking 22 wickets.

2014 season

Virat Kohli was named the captain of RCB team. Before the auction, Ab de Villiers, Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli were retained from the previous seasons.The players bought in the 2014 auctions were Albie Morkel, Mitchell Starc, Ravi Rampaul, Parthiv Patel, Ashok Dinda, Muttiah Muralitharan, Nic Maddinson, Harshal Patel, Varun Aaron, Vijay Zol and Yuvraj Singh who was the most expensive player fetching a massive 14 crore. They ended up 7th in the points table and didn't qualify for the playoffs.

2015 season

RCB retained Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Mitchell Starc, Ashok Dinda, Varun Aaron, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Nic Maddinson, Rilee Rossouw, Abu Nechim, Yogesh Takawale, Vijay Zol and Sandeep Warrier for the 2015 Indian Premier League.They also bought Manvinder Bisla and Iqbal Abdulla from Kolkata Knight Riders and Mandeep Singh from Kings XI Punjab during the Transfer Window. They bought Darren Sammy, David Wiese, Adam Milne, Sean Abbott, Subramaniam Badrinath, Jalaj Saxena, Sarfaraz Khan and Dinesh Karthik for 10.5 crores from the 2015 Player Auctions.

Royal Challengers Bangalore started their season with an unconvincing win against KKR at Kolkata, supported by a knock of 96 by Chris Gayle. But they lost their next three matches in Bengaluru to SRH, MI, and CSK. Two great bowling performances ensured RCB secured dominant wins against RR and DD, winning by 9 wickets and 10 wickets respectively. Their next match against RR got washed out after a strong batting performance from RCB. They lost a close match to CSK, but recovered by crushing Kings XI Punjab by 138 runs, supported by a century by Chris Gayle, and a four wicket haul for Sreenath Aravind and Mitchell Starc. Royal Challengers' good form continued when AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli smashed the highest T20 partnership ever (later beaten by the same pair in IPL 2016) against Mumbai Indians, to secure a good win. Later, RCB lost to Kings XI Punjab in a rain affected match, putting their playoff qualification in doubt. They faced SRH in the next match, again affected by rain. Amidst a lot of drama, and stunning performances from Virat Kohli and Gayle, RCB won an unlikely match in Hyderabad. Now, the only way they could be out of the playoffs became very unlikely, yet possible. RCB lost their chance to be placed second in the points table after rain washed out their final match against DD.

They ended the league stage at the third position, with 7 wins from 14 matches. On 20 May, they faced the Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator and earned a spot in Qualifier 2. However, they lost to the Chennai Super Kings in the Qualifier 2, and ended the season finishing third. Ab de Villiers, Virat Kohli, and Chris Gayle, ended by being the 4th, 5th, and 6th highest run scorers of the season respectively, while Yuzvendra Chahal was RCB's highest wicket taker, being the 3rd highest in the season.

2016 season

In light of financial scandals involving owner/chairman Vijay Mallya, Amrit Thomas became the chairman of the Royal Challengers. RCB changed the team logo and also became the first team in IPL to adopt different jerseys for home and away matches. Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Mitchell Starc, David Wiese, Adam Milne, Varun Aaron, Mandeep Singh, Harshal Patel, Kedar Jadhav, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Aravind, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Abu Nechim were retained by RCB for the 2016 Indian Premier League. From player auctions, they bought Shane Watson for 9.5 crores, Kane Richardson and Stuart Binny for 2 crores each, and Travis Head and Samuel Badree for 50 lakhs each. Other players that joined the team were Sachin Baby, Iqbal Abdulla, Praveen Dubey, Akshay Karnewar, Vikramjeet Malik and Vikas Tokas. KL Rahul and Parvez Rasool also joined RCB for the IPL 2016 edition.

Royal Challengers Bangalore started their season with a blitz from AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli against SRH at Bengaluru, to comfortably win their first match. A bludgeoning century from Quinton de Kock meant RCB lost their second match of the season. Their form deteriorated in the coming matches, winning only one match of the next five. Although, Virat Kohli and AB de Villier's brilliant form, along with the emergence of KL Rahul as an important member of RCB's batting, were positive points. Royal Challengers needed to win at least 6 of their next seven matches to have a chance at qualifying for the playoffs. They won matches against KXIP and Rising Pune Supergiant, the new entrant in the tournament. But a loss against Mumbai Indians meant they needed 4 wins in 4 matches to qualify. Since then, Virat Kohli found himself in sublime form, with captaincy and the bat. RCB most notably defeated the Gujarat Lions by 144 runs, the highest margin in IPL history, during this 4 match winning streak. Through other match results, RCB ended at an unlikely second position at the end of the league stage. Virat Kohli dominated the run-scoring list, while Shane Watson and Yuzvendra Chahal collectively topped the wicket taking list at the end of the league stage. They faced the Gujarat Lions in the Qualifier 1 at their home ground, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. They won by 4 wickets to make it to their third final in nine seasons. They played the final against SRH, again in Bengaluru. RCB lost a hard fought match by 8 runs, to end as runners up in this ninth season of the IPL. This is the third instance of RCB losing the finals in the IPL.

Yuzvendra Chahal and Shane Watson ended second and third respectively on the list for most wickets.

At the launch event of his biography, 'Driven: The Virat Kohli Story' in New Delhi, in October 2016, Kohli announced that RCB would be his permanent IPL franchise that he would play for.^[11][12]

2017 season

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Mitchell Starc, Adam Milne, Mandeep Singh, Harshal Patel, Kedar Jadhav, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Aravind, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Travis Head, Samuel Badree, Sachin Baby, Iqbal Abdulla, Praveen Dubey and KL Rahul were retained by RCB for the 2017 Indian Premier League. From player auctions, they bought Tymal Mills for 12 crores, Aniket Chaudhary for 2 crores, Pawan Negi for 1 crore and Billy Stanlake for 30 lakhs. Mitchell Starc dropped out of the season to prepare for the Champions Trophy which led to the management to replace him with Tymal Mills. The team was the worst hit with injuries as their captain Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers did not play for the initial matches which led to the making of Shane Watson as the interim captain. Even their star players KL Rahul and Sarfaraz Khan were ruled out of the season due to their prolonged injuries.

They lost their first match of the season as they were bundled out by 172 and lost by 35 runs to Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad. But they won their second match against Delhi Daredevils in their home ground. However, they lost the next three matches in a row against Kings XI Punjab, Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Supergiant respectively. Through AB De Villiers made a quick fire 89 off 46 balls, RCB lost the match against Kings XI Punjab as the other players made 57 dot balls. The match against Mumbai Indians saw Virat Kohli's comeback with a quick 62 off 47 balls and Samuel Badree becoming the 14th player in the IPL history to claim a hat-trick, but the lost the match as Pollard made 70 off 47 balls to win the match for them. They lost the match against Rising Pune Supergiant by a massive 27 runs. But in their next game against Gujarat Lions, they won by 20 runs and coincidentally Chris Gayle became the first player to score 10,000 runs in T20s. However, in their next game against Kolkata Knight Riders,on the day when RCB made 263/5 against Pune Warriors India which was the highest IPL score in 2013, they were bundled out for 49 all out which is the lowest IPL score and also where no batsman could score 10 runs. They kept losing matches consecutively as they could not make high scores and their big guns-Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers failing repeatedly. The pitch in M.Chinnaswamy Stadium was changed from a usual batting to the bowling pitch which made the batsman struggle for runs. They ended up at the bottom of the table and the changed their squad for each match which was the reason for its downfall. However, they finished their miserable season on a high note after winning against Delhi Daredevils by 10 runs in Delhi. They made low scores like 49 all out against Kolkata Knight Riders, 96/9 against Rising Pune Supergiant and 119 all out against Kings XI Punjab.

Livery

Vijay Mallya wanted to associate one of his top-selling liquor brands, either McDowell's No.1 or Royal Challenge with the team.^[13] The latter was chosen, hence the name.

Logo

The logo initially consisted the RC emblem in yellow on a circular red base with the black text "Royal Challengers Bangalore" in standard format surrounding circular logo. The RC crown emblem with the roaring lion placed on the top of the logo was derived from the original Royal Challenge logo. No significant changes took place in the design of the logo except for the replacement of colour yellow with gold from 2009. This logo also had a dotted white circle around the RC emblem. The team also uses an alternate logo for the Game for Green matches where the green plants surround the logo and the text Game for Green is placed below the logo. The logo was redesigned in 2016 with the inclusion of black as a secondary color. The lion emblem in the crest was enlarged and the shield was omitted in the new design.

Jersey

The jersey colors of the team in 2008 were red and golden yellow, the same as the unofficial Kannada flag,^[14] with player names printed in white and numbers printed in black in the rear. Yellow was eliminated in future seasons and was replaced with gold. Starting from 2010, blue was introduced on the apparel as a tertiary colour. The jersey design saw tweaks every season, major being the one for 2014 where blue dominated over gold. From 2014, the player names and numbers were printed in gold. As of 2015, more yellowish shade of gold is being used on the jerseys. The blue was completely eliminated in 2016 and was replaced by black as the third colour in the two versions of the jersey - one for home matches and the other for away ones. Reebok manufactured kits for the team from 2008 to 2014. As of 2016, Zeven manufactures the kits for the team.^[15]

Theme song

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. A new anthem, "Here We Go The Royal Challengers" was created for the 2013 season and was used till 2015. The anthem "Play Bold" was composed by Salim–Sulaiman, sung by Siddharth Basrur and was released in 2016 during the launch of jerseys for the season. For 2017, the same anthem was recomposed and sung by Anand Bhaskar in 6 languages - English, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi.

Ambassadors

Katrina Kaif was roped in as the brand ambassador for the team in 2008, but later stepped down due to her prior commitments with filmmakers.Deepika Padukone, Ramya, Puneeth Rajkumar, Upendra and Ganesh have been the ambassadors for the team in the initial seasons.^[16] Shiva Rajkumar is the brand Ambassador for the season 11 .

Mallya's home brand Royal Challenge became the primary sponsor of the team from the start of the Indian Premier League in 2008. Since then United Spirits Limited (now a subsidiary of Diageo) used almost all advertisement slots on the apparel for the promotion of their brands. Kingfisher, McDowell's No.1, Whyte and Mackay, White Mischief were prominently advertised on the jerseys in the initial seasons. In 2014, for the first time, Huawei, a non-home brand acquired the main slot on the jersey for two seasons. In 2016 and 2017, Hero Cycles and Gionee took over at the head jersey sponsors respectively. In 2018 Eros Now have officially announced to sponsor the jersey of the team.

In 2015, the team had United Spirits, Huawei and Kingfisher as the principal sponsors. Midea, Tata Motors (labeled Tata Bolt), Britannia Industries, TGS Constructions, 7 UP, Ed Hardy, Allen Career Institute, DNA Network, Mallya Hospital, Fever 104 FM, Redbus, Uber and Adidas were the associate sponsors.

In 2016, RCB had its own brand Kingfisher by United Breweries Group along with Hero Cycles as the principle sponsors. Lloyd Air Conditioners, LYF, Tata Zest, Britannia, Himalaya Men, Acer, Ola were the associate sponsors. Zeven, a multi sports apparel brand by Mahesh Bhupathi and Shikhar Dhawan replaced Adidas as the kit sponsors. 7 UP, Manipal Hospitals, Fever 104 FM and DNA Network were the official partners for 2016.

As of 2017, while Zeven continued to manufacture kits for the team, Gionee became the principal sponsor. Lloyd Air Conditioners, Jio, Karnataka Tourism Jungle Lodges & Resorts, Himalaya Men, Duroflex Mattresses and 7 UPwere the associate sponsors. Other official partners included Gatorade, Wrogn, Boost, Tissot, Radio Mirchi, Acer, DNA Network, AbhiBus.com, Nissin and Galileo-iNurture.

The team prominently displayed the liquor brands owned by Vijay Mallya through UB Group such as Royal Challenge, McDowells No.1, White Mischief, Kingfisher etc. until 2013. In the 2014 season, no liquor brands were advertised on the apparel, however Royal Challenge Sports Gear and Kingfisher Packaged Drinking Water are displayed on the jerseys.

The Royal Challengers have a huge and passionate fan base all over India and especially in the city of Bangalore. The fans, known to be "loyal" and vocal in their support,^[18] often turn up in large numbers for RCB's home matches turning the stadium into what is called a "sea of red".^[19][20][21] They are well known for their chants of "R-C-B, R-C-B"^[22][23] and the co-ordinated Mexican wave at the Chinnaswamy.^[24] People are known to cheer for RCB than any other team. The stadium organisers sometimes provide the home team fans with cheer kits, RCB flags and noisemakers among other items.^[25] Royal Challengers Bangalore have formed a fan-following group named as Bold Army.

During the 2014 IPL, the Royal Challengers became the first team to provide free Wi-Fi connectivity to fans at their home ground. 50 access points were set up using fibre optic cables to provide the connectivity to fans on match days at the Chinnaswamy.^[26]

Template:Royal Challengers Bangalore Roster

• Owner - (United Spirits Limited - Diageo)
• Team director - Amrit Thomas
• Team and cricket operations manager - Avinash Vaidya
• Head coach - Daniel Vettori
• Batting coach - Gary Kirsten
• Bowling coach - Ashish Nehra
• Fielding coach - Trent Woodhill
• Bowling talent development and analytics - Andrew McDonald
• Strength and conditioning coach - Basu Shanker
• Physiotherapist - Evan Speechly

•   Martin Crowe - 2008
•   Venkatesh Prasad - 2008 - 2009, 2011 - 2013
•   Ray Jennings - 2009 - 2013
•   Daniel Vettori - 2014–present

By Opposition

Last Updated on 26 May 2016 ^[28]

By Venue

• Official website