ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), officially Royal Challengers Bengaluru, is a professional franchise cricket team based in Bangalore, Karnataka, playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The franchise was founded in 2008 by United Spirits and was named after its liquor brand Royal Challenge. The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium serves as the team's home ground.head of the 2008 player auction, the IPL named Rahul Dravid as the icon player for the Bangalore franchise, which meant that Dravid would be paid 15% more than the highest bid player at the auction. The franchise acquired a number of Indian and international players at the auction such as Jacques Kallis, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn and Cameron White. They also signed up Ross Taylor, Misbah-ul-Haq and India under-19 World Cup winning captain Virat Kohli in the second round of auction. The team won only 4 of the 14 matches in the inaugural season, finishing seventh in the eight-team table. Only Dravid managed to score more than 300 runs in the tournament and they had to even bench their costliest foreign player Kallis for a few of the matches due to his poor form.[9][10] The string of failures midway through the season led to the sacking of the CEO Charu Sharma, who was replaced with Brijesh Patel.[11] Team owner Vijay Mallya went on to publicly criticise Dravid and Sharma for the players selected by them at the auction and stated that his "biggest mistake was to abstain from the selection of the team."[11] Eventually the chief cricketing officer Martin Crowe resigned.[12] At the 2009 player auction, the franchise signed up Kevin Pietersen for a record sum of US$1.55 million, making him the joint costliest player, along with fellow Englishman Andrew Flintoff who was signed up by the Chennai Super Kings for the same amount.[13] They also traded Zaheer Khan for Robin Uthappa with the Mumbai Indians and also roped in local batsman Manish Pandey from them.[14] Ahead of the tournament, which was shifted to South Africa due to the general elections, the Royal Challengers named Pietersen as the team captain for the season. Bangalore continued to struggle during the initial games of the 2009 season, winning only two of their first six games under the new captain. However, the team's fortunes improved after Pietersen left for national duty and Kumble took over the captaincy,[15] as the team went on to win six of their remaining eight league games to finish third on the points table.[16] The team qualified for the semifinal where they faced the Super Kings. Electing to field first, Bangalore restricted their opponents to 146 and chased down the total with 5 wickets in hand, thanks to 48 and 44 by Pandey and Dravid respectively.[17] In the final against Deccan Chargers, the Royal Challengers bowlers, led by Kumble's 4 for 16, kept the Chargers down to 143/6. However, they struggled in the runchase, with only four batsmen reaching double figures, and lost the match by six runs in a tense finish.[18] Ross Taylor was one of the top performers for RCB in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, the Royal Challengers continued under Kumble's captaincy and finished the regular season with seven wins from 14 matches and 14 points. They were one of the four teams tied on 14 points with two semifinal spots at stake; they qualified for the semifinal as their net run rate was superior to those of the Delhi Daredevils and the Kolkata Knight Riders.[19] In the semifinal, the Royal Challengers were defeated by the table-toppers Mumbai I