Glenn Maxwell
Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar feels that a good season for Royal Challengers Bangalore's newbie Glenn Maxwell will help the franchise reach the playoffs for the second successive season.
Despite his worst ever IPL season last year in the UAE where he scored 108 runs in 106 balls for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) without scoring a single half-century and hitting a six, Maxwell was roped in by RCB for a whopping INR14.25 crore in the auction earlier this year in Chennai.
In the opener, the Aussie all-rounder played a crucial role with the bat scoring 39 off 28 with five boundaries at No.4 before AB de Villiers' magical knock helped RCB win their opener against defending champions Mumbai Indians on April 9 in Chennai.
Manjrekar, in an exclusive chat with India TV on Wednesday, opined that RCB have had a chronic problem pertaining to their seam bowlers over the past few years. But feels that they have made a good pick in Maxwell and roped in a few T20 specialist bowlers for the 2021 season which will help them reach the playoffs.
"RCB has had a chronic problem that has been there for years now. The team has two or three top players, two good spinners, but seam bowling has been their main weakness. They have seamers not suited to T20 conditions like Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini and Mohammed Siraj. So that was an issue that haunted them throughout. Their batting however was better. But this time around, they have Maxwell, who was a good pick and if he has a good season then RCB can certainly make the playoffs. Bowling has bettered with them dropping Saini and bringing in Harshal Patel. They also have bowling depth to choose from. In the last game, Chahal finished his four overs early for some 40 odd runs, so Kohli should not repeat that mistake. If Kohli looks at all the bowling option and goes for the best bowlers on that particular day, then their season as a whole will prove to be a better one," said Manjrekar.
RCB will play their second game against SRH in Chennai on Wednesday.
