IPL 2024: RCB’s not Virat-dependent, enough time for overseas stars to come good, says Reece Topley
Mumbai, April 10 : Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s English pacer Reece Topley has rejected the claim that the RCB has so far been dependent on Virat Kohli for runs as their overseas batters have failed to fire. He said it is too early to pass such a verdict and there is enough time for everyone to shine.
While Virat Kohli has stolen an early march on all batters, having scored 316 runs in five matches, the rest of the RCB batters have not contributed a lot with skipper Faf du Plessis a distant second with 109 runs while Cameron Green, their big acquisition ahead of IPL 2024, contributing only 68 runs in five innings. That has resulted in RCB lugging the bottom of the points table with only one win in five matches going into the match against Mumbai Indians on Thursday.
But Topley said it is too early to tag them as failures and said though Kohli has been the main contributor to their scores so far, there was enough time for others to shine through.
“You can take away the fact that it is the overseas batters (only) and you can probably say, Virat has had quite a load in the run-scoring department,” Topley said in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday.
“I do not think anyone needs to be an expert to sort of look at everyone’s performances and say they haven’t been up to scratch and that’s all aspects of the game, and obviously now we’ve had five games.
“The exciting part is that it’s still relatively young into the tournament. There’s a lot still to play for and what is exciting is that there’s a lot of time to turn that around and still showcase how good we are.”
“At the start of the season (the goal) is to qualify for the finals. To there’s still an opportunity to do that, we’re working hard to make that achievable,” said the left-arm pacer from England.
Asked what should RCB do, starting from the match against Mumbai Indians on Thursday, to pull things back, Topley said they need to put the opposition under pressure.
“It’s always dangerous when things haven’t been going so well for a side, there’s even more of an emphasis to go out and put the onus on the opposition. We need to put them under pressure and we’ll be doing everything we can to do that,” he said.
