After suffering a six-wicket defeat to Mumbai Indians in IPL 2023, Royal Challengers Bangalore head coach Sanjay Bangar believes the young uncapped Indian batters in the side haven't stepped up in crucial situations.
On Tuesday, barring 68 from Glenn Maxwell, 65 from captain Faf du Plessis and an 18-ball 30 from Dinesh Karthik, none of the Indian batters stood up as Bangalore made 199/6, which was chased down by Mumbai in 16.3 overs.
While Mahipal Lomror, after making a fine fifty against Delhi Capitals, fell for just one, wicketkeeper-batter Anuj Rawat's lean run continued as he fell for just six after coming out to bat at number three.
"For us, the team was sort of built in such a way (Glenn) Maxwell, Faf (du Plessis), Virat (Kohli) and Dinesh (Karthik) were going to be the fulcrum of the batting and the younger players would play around them."
"They are progressing, but not at a very good pace. Mahipal Lomror has taken his chances well but somebody like Anuj Rawat or even Shahbaz Ahmed, whenever they have gotten those opportunities, have unfortunately not been able to capitalise on them," said Bangar in the post-match press conference.
Bangar, a former India batting coach, feels the side will have to be patient to get consistent performances from the young batters, citing Rinku Singh's example. "That is the learning, you have to be patient with youngsters and it takes time to expect that they will take their opportunities and churn out match-winning performances for the team."
"Maybe you can relate it to the example of Rinku Singh - this is his season but he had to spend a lot of time and the kind of work KKR did with him over the last 3-4 years is now paying off," he said in the post-match press conference.
With the loss to Mumbai, Bangalore have now slipped to the seventh spot in the points table with 10 points from 11 matches. Bangar rued Bangalore not getting the momentum to score extra runs in the last ten overs.
"Yes, it does (hurt us). We would have certainly liked to win and progress higher up the table. The table is very tight and it is going to go down right till the last match of the tournament.""We certainly felt 10 runs short.
We lost three wickets in the middle phase wherein Maxwell, Faf and Lomror got out. And towards the end we couldn't get the impetus which was required to get those extra 10 runs," he added.
Bangalore's next match in IPL 2023 will be against Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Sunday afternoon.