Monday 4 May 2009

Royal Challengers South Africa

Apart from the rather wanky name, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (oh fuck it, I'm going with BRC) seem to have formed an alliance with internationals from the South African part of the world. It's certainly of assistance in the SAPL, so let's take a look at their line-up, or more importantly, the saffa part of their line-up:
  • Ray Jennings (okay, so he's coach, but it counts)
  • Mark Boucher
  • Jacques Kallis
  • Dale Steyn
  • ROFL
  • Dillon du Preez

5 internationals from South Africa, not including the coach. Then take into account the likelihood of these players actually being part of the line-up. At least 3 are guaranteed a spot in the final XI, regardless of who they are, and BRC wouldn't be doing themselves any harm by even having 4 in their line-up.

The other teams in the competition have a more diverse range of foreign players. Kolkata Knight Rider have 2 saffas, Mumbai also have 2, plus the bowling and fielding coaches Shaun Pollock and Jonty Rhodes, Rajasthan have 3, Chennai have 2, Delhi 1, but he's determined to take the places of 3 people, Deccan also have 1, and Punjab have acquired 1 this year too.

A lot of those teams have yet to play one or more of their saffa players. Meanwhile, Bangalore have poached a lot of South Africa's best players from the outset.

It begs the question, did Vijay Mallya somehow know the IPL would be shifted to South Africa in the second year before he bid on any of the players last year?

Oh, and if you're looking to twist things a little, BRC have 6 South African players, if you count Kevin Pietersen.

7 comments:

Srishti said...

I don't. KP failed. therefore, he's more english than south african.

Amy said...

Good point.

Alok said...

Call me a dodgy statistician but with KP this year RCB won 2 of 6. Without KP they have won 2 of 2.

CSK also seems to have done better without Flintoff of late.

Conclusion: Highly paid Englishmen on playing XI of a T20 = v v bad idea.

Esra_Star said...

I think they knew something was going down. Bouch gets Jennings a coaching gig, IPL becomes SAPL, ROFL and du Preez get picked.

Shit even Jacques batted better than KP. To allow this to happen means KP is un-South African.

Funniest part of last night's game was watching Bouch & Kallis sledge JP.

Amy said...

Alok, spot on. Freddie and KP never did anything much for their teams. KP did a little, but Freddie seemed to make Chennai's losses worse. But then of course he'd make them feel better afterwards with some hugs and grins, because that's his forte.

Esra, I know, although Bouch is a bit of a pathetic sledger. I've always liked Ian Healy in that department. A complete idiot, but he said some of the funniest things.

Q said...

They played all 4 South africans last night Amy - Kallis, Boucher, Dillon, ROFL..

As soon as the IPL was shifted Mallya commented on how RCB would be favorites since they had 6 Saffers in their squad.. he counted KP as one!

And I did a post on WP about how it was KP's dream come true captaining South Africa in South Africa ;-)

Amy said...

Haha, I bet he enjoyed all the royal boos he got. Excellent.

BRC are the South African team, it's official. Forget their Kiwis, they're going all out with saffas.