Andy Flower makes history with RCB

“You need a lot of courage to face adversity and turn tough situations around and that is what I expect from everyone in the dressing room.”

Those were the words of former Zimbabwe cricket captain and legend, Andy Flower when results were not coming during the early days of his stint as the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) coach in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

At the time, RCB had suffered six consecutive defeats.

The Zimbabwean great found himself in all sorts of trouble with the ambitious RCB managing only one victory out of their eight opening matches.

Any coach would have thrown in the towel but that wasn’t the case for Flower, who has managed to turn things around and send his charges to the next stage of the world’s most lucrative T20 franchise league.

A resurgent RCB team with experienced campaigners such as Virat Kohli, Dinesh Karthik, Glenn Maxwell and Faf Du Plessis has made it six wins on the trot to proceed to the playoffs of the 2024 IPL.

Regarded as one of the best ever batters, Flower has also solidified his status as one of the most elite minds of the game, making RCB the first team in IPL history to make the playoffs after managing just one win in their first eight games.

They sealed their qualification to the playoffs on Saturday after registering a 27-run win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Bengaluru.

Flower and his charges have joined table toppers, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Rajasthan Royals (RR), and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the playoffs.

“Never count RCB out. What a turnaround! What a performance! Let’s go get that title now,” wrote club and South African legend, AB De Villiers.

For Flower, managing to send RCB into the playoffs after the worst possible start to his campaign was more proof of his qualities as a gaffer.

Some of his achievements as head coach in T20 leagues include finishing as finalist in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL, 2020),reaching the eliminator in the 2020 Pakistan Super League (PSL), winning 2021 PSL, reaching The Hundred eliminator in 2021 and finishing as the finalist in the 2021 CPL. He also went on to reach the finals of the 2022 PS before reaching the playoffs of the IPL in the same year with Lucknow Super Giants. In 2022 again, Flower won The Hundred and in the following year, he won the International League T20 (ILT20). He also managed to reach the PSL and IPL playoffs in that same year.

In Saturday’s crunch encounter which Flower’s troops managed to win, they needed nothing short of victory to progress and eliminate their opponents.

RCB were asked to bat first and they scored 218 runs with the help of Kohli and Du Plessis’ blazing starts. They needed to win by at least 18 runs to knock CSK out and restricted MS Dhoni’s men to 191/7 in their 20 overs.

The skipper, Du Plessis fell for 54 runs off 39 deliveries while Kohli made 47 runs off 29 balls. Rajat Patidar chipped in with 41 runs from 23 balls.

Defending a target of 219 runs, RCB found themselves needing not to concede more than 16 runs in the final over to qualify as CSK needed 17 to go through and eliminate Flower’s men.

In the final over, CSK needed 35 runs to win as they were on 184/6 but for net run rate purposes, scoring at most 201 runs would have seen them qualify regardless of the match’s outcome.

With Yash Dayal bowling the last over, the 26 year old fast bowler only conceded seven runs and took Dhoni’s wicket to send his team through.

Both RCB and CSK finished on 14 points but Flower’s men enjoyed a better net run rate.

RCB’s opponents in the eliminator match are yet to be revealed. However, the game is pencilled for Wednesday.

Flower has managed to inject a winning mentality to the RCB camp and have been enjoying the rewards. – @brandon_malvin