Ambati Rayudu blames RCB's title drought to senior players' failure | IPL 2024

If a title triumph has eluded Royal Challengers Bengaluru since the inception of the Indian Premier League (IPL), it is because highly-paid international stars have always buckled under pressure, leaving the juniors to do all the heavylifting, says former India batter Ambati Rayudu.

Rayudu, who has won multiple IPL trophies with both Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, didn't take any names but probably he was hinting towards team's three premier batters -- Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell and Faf du Plessis.

RCB have lost two out of their three IPL games this season and while Kohli has scored 203 runs at a strike-rate of 140 plus, he hasn't exactly set the stage on fire during Powerplay.

Du Plessis has managed 65 runs in four games while Maxwell has contributed only 31 runs so far in as many games.

"RCB's bowlers always concede over par runs and their batting unit performs under par," Rayudu told Star Sports after RCB lost to LSG on Tuesday.

"Who are all batting in pressure situations? The young Indian batters and Dinesh Karthik. The big international names, who are supposed to take the pressure, where are they? All are back in the dressing room," Rayudu said.

He was referring Mahipal Lomror, who has come in as Impact Sub in a few games and scored at a strike-rate of 230 plus and Karthik, whose cameo was instrumental in their only win of the season so far against Punjab Kings.

Rayudu termed it as a convenient option for senior batters, who are consuming all the Powerplay overs, where scoring runs is easy with field restrictions in place.

"Sixteen years. This is the same story of RCB, when there is pressure, no big name is ever found standing. All youngsters are playing at the back-end and all the big guns bat at the top of the order and they whip off the cream from the cake and that is the reason this team has never won IPL," said the 38-year-old firebrand batter, who played 55 ODIs and six T20Is for India between 2013 and 2019.