Virat Kohli has two fifties from two matches, but Royal Challengers Bengaluru have won only one of their first three games. Some believe Kohli has not been getting his runs fast enough and that has hurt his team. But in reality, that’s not the case.

The problem lies with the RCB top order as a whole and it’s not about Kohli’s strike rate, it’s more about the others failing to accumulate runs around him.

Kohli’s has scored 141 runs from three matches at a strike rate of 141.4. What
have the others done? From three games, captain Faf du Plessis aggregates 46, Anuj Rawat 62, Cameron Green 54 and Glenn Maxwell is the worst with 31.

So what does RCB need to do to overcome the Lucknow Super Giants challenge in Bengaluru on Tuesday? Simple, their batters need to score runs. Lots of it. And not depend solely on Kohli.

RCB head coach Andy Flower at least has understood the problem.

“Our top five batsmen are yet to fire. There are big scores on offer at the Chinnaswamy (Stadium). So, once our big batsmen start scoring runs, I think we’ll see some of those big scores. I have absolutely no doubt about that,” Flower said on Tuesday.

In the Lucknow camp on the other hand, the spotlight is firmly on two persons. Captain KL Rahul, whose fitness status is dubious after he only batted in the last game leaving the captaincy duties to Nicholas Pooran. And the other person is Mayank Yadav, who has set the speedometer on fire with his raw pace.

Mayank, in particular, will play a key role. Will the shaky RCB top-order shiver when they face the 21-year-old? Or will they finally play true to their potential?