Of their four foreigners who played on Wednesday, Chris Gayle averaged 48.11, AB de Villiers' 48.66 and Tillakaratne Dilshan 50.66 going into the game. That their team still languished at third from bottom on the points table was a bit odd.
So far this season, for Royal Challengers
Bangalore, it has been a classic case of a team paying the price when it tends to depend heavily on individual brilliance. In a tournament where the seven Indian players hold the key to success, RCB's local players hadn't come to the party.
From the big names like Virat Kohli and Zaheer Khan to R Vinay Kumar to all the local names, strangely everyone had had a poor run.
Kohli came into the game with an average of 20.10, Saurabh Tiwary with 17.33 and Mayank Agarwal 16. Mohammad Kaif, Asad Pathan and Cheteshwar Pujara had all been tried without success.
Ditto in bowling. Zaheer had nine wickets to show in 11 games, Vinay eight in 10, Harshal Patel five from eight. Abhimanyu Mithun and Prasanth Parameswaran failed to impress while left-arm spinner KP Appanna came good in one match.
Domestic flavour
On Wednesday though there were a few broad smiles in the RCB dug out. More than the result of the game, the coaching staff would be pleased with how their Indian boys shaped up, at least in bowling.
On quite a few occasions, the good work of their overseas stars has gone down the drain with the opposition easily targeting RCB's weak-links -- their Indian talent.
Like most other teams, the Mumbai Indians seemed to have come out with the same intention at the Wankhede Stadium but the plan backfired.
Bowling has been RCB's main concern this season, and Sachin Tendulkar & Co could be excused if they were hoping for easy runs. To the RCB supporter's pleasant surprise, it was an inspired bowling attack which greeted the opposition. The MI batsmen were clearly rattled by the intensity.
Vinay Kumar set the tone with a double strike in the second over of the game while Zaheer was at his clever best, finishing with figures of 4-0-16-0. Patel put the icing on the cake with a spell of 4-0-24-2, which included the prized scalp of Tendulkar.
The evergreen Muttiah Muralitharan also chipped in with two wickets off successive deliveries.
After 11 points in 11 games, the Bangalore team needed to win three out of their remaining five games. Gayle & Co have carried the team so far, but they won't be able to achieve higher goals without team work.