Half an hour after the teams returned to their respective hotels, the ground staff at the Chinnaswamy Stadium started switching off the floodlights. Before the lights on the last tower could be switched off, Royal Challengers Bangalore bowling coach, Venkatesh Prasad, walked out on the field with a baseball glove.
Left-arm spinner KP Appanna, who has been warming the bench so far, joined Prasad. R Vinay Kumar, the T20 specialist who had been taken apart in the last two games, joined the duo and bowled tirelessly for nearly an hour.
Desperation
Appanna and Vinay's desperation to practice in inadequate light was understandable. After all, when a side cannot defend 205 runs - and then concedes 113 runs in its last seven overs in the next game, the bowlers have to do all they can to get back into the groove.
While the RCB batsmen have hardly covered themselves with glory, their bowlers have been miserable to say the least in this edition. Little wonder, the last year's runners-up find themselves placed eighth in the nine-league tournament.
Skipper Daniel Vettori is at a loss to explain the failure of his bowling attack. It's quite unbelievable that RCB conceded 195 runs against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday despite two of their main bowlers - Vettori and Zaheer Khan - conceding 35 runs in their eight overs. "A couple of bowlers went for a lot of runs but the lack of a fifth bowler has been the root of our problem. It has probably hit us in every game," Vettori said after the loss.
{{/usCountry}}Skipper Daniel Vettori is at a loss to explain the failure of his bowling attack. It's quite unbelievable that RCB conceded 195 runs against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday despite two of their main bowlers - Vettori and Zaheer Khan - conceding 35 runs in their eight overs. "A couple of bowlers went for a lot of runs but the lack of a fifth bowler has been the root of our problem. It has probably hit us in every game," Vettori said after the loss.
{{/usCountry}}Perhaps, the Kiwi was so shocked after his team's third successive loss that he forgot that the RCB have fielded five regular bowlers in every game. But when your top four bowlers - all international regulars - can't restrict the opposition, why put the blame on the fifth?