Year After Year The Pressure Keeps Increasing On Virat Kohli And AB de Villiers - Gautam Gambhir On RCB's Title Drought

Former India batsman Gautam Gambhir believes that the pressure of not winning the IPL trophy gets mounted on Virat Kohli And AB de Villiers after every trophyless season.

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have played in 3 IPL finals, and have lost all three; the last of those came in 2016 under Kohli, and despite his thunderous form when he struck 973 runs, he couldn’t help his side to the title.

While Kohli has been with the side since 2008, de Villiers joined RCB in 2011. Both the batsmen have seen the immense highs and lows of the franchise, and have become the heartbeat of the eleven. Last season they were knocked out in the playoffs.

Gautam Gambhir reckons the pressure of not winning the title affects the two stalwarts and could be one of the reasons for their faltering fortunes every year.

“Probably there’s a lot of pressure on Virat and AB as well, which could be one of the reasons and year after year, if you don’t win that title the pressure keeps on increasing as well,” Gautam Gambhir told Star Sports.

They would want to go out and dominate the opposition: Gautam Gambhir

This season, however, could be the change in their history. The introduction of Glenn Maxwell in the middle-order seems to have lessened the burden from the shoulders of Kohli and Maxwell. They had won 5 games in the first half before the season was suspended.

Gautam Gambhir talked about the three superstar batters, and how they would want to dominate the bowling attacks in the remainder of the season.

“He’s (Virat) got people like AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell, which is a huge cushion to have. Even if it’s not Maxwell, AB is a massive cushion because there is only one person who can take on someone like Jasprit Bumrah and it was AB de Villiers. I have not seen anyone else who has done it that consistently against Jasprit Bumrah, but AB is a freak,” Gautam Gambhir said.

“But yes obviously, from Virat’s standard they would want to go out and dominate the opposition, especially in the IPL.

“There’s international cricket where you’ve got 5 or 6 top international bowlers, you don’t have that in the IPL. You probably get 2 or 3 international bowlers and then you’ve got domestic bowlers as well, whom you could dominate,” the former KKR skipper concluded.

RCB sit at the third position in the points table with 10 points. They will take on the Kolkata Knight Riders on September 20 in Abu Dhabi.

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