Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is one such team which have promised a lot year after year and shown glimpses of their brilliance through individual performances but have never been able to clinch the crucial moments of the trophy. While RCB’s performances haven’t been as they should have been, one of the main reasons for this is the continuous chopping and changing of players with no continuity in their squad.

Every year RCB buying new players who appear to be exciting prospects, but after a few bad games drop them from the eleven, which doesn’t help the player’s confidence or the team morale. Subsequently, they are dropped from the squad.

1. KL Rahul

Bidding adieu to KL Rahul is the obvious regretful decision RCB has taken. Rahul, who had started out more as a conventional Test player, showed what he was capable of in the shortest format when in 2016, he stepped up and scored heavily for RCB acting as the perfect foil to Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. He scored 397 runs in 14 games at a strike rate of 147. Unfortunately, he had to miss the entire 2017 season due to an injury.

However, in the 2018 mega auction, Rahul was expected to be retained by RCB but to everyone’s astonishment, they went for Sarfaraz Khan. As it turned out, Rahul’s demand was immense in the auction and RCB did not end up using their RTM card for him as he was eventually sold to Kings XI Punjab for a whopping 11 crores.

2. Quinton De Kock

In 2018, RCB picked up Quinton de Kock for just INR 2.8 crores, it was termed as one of the best buys of the auction. And not without reason, De Kock had established himself as one of the best wicketkeeper-batsmen in the last few years, especially in limited-overs cricket. And while he had missed the 2017 IPL, he had a great season with Delhi in 2016 where he had scored 445 runs in 13 games including a ton against RCB.

Because of the complications in the team, de Kock ended up playing just eight games scoring 201 runs. Unlike the expectations of him to play a bigger role in 2019, he was traded to Mumbai Indians at the same price before the start of the 2019 season. This decision was inexplicable as de Kock’s style of play suited the Bangalore pitches and with age being on his side, he was someone who could have served RCB for a long time. De Kock was backed to the hilt in Mumbai Indians and he didn’t disappoint scoring 529 runs in 16 games and emerging as their top scorer in 2019.

3. Dinesh Karthik

Called as one of the unluckiest players in the Indian Team, Karthik was roped in by RCB in 2015 for an astonishing 10.5 crores with the hopes of having a dependable and experienced middle-order player, who could control the innings in case the top three of Chris Gayle, Kohli and de Villiers failed. He could muster up only 141 runs in 11 innings without a single score of note. While in his defense, he got just 117 balls through the tournament, his strike rate of 120 doesn’t indicate he did the job of being a finisher either.

In the following two seasons with Gujarat Lions, he scored in excess of 330 runs both years and after being picked up by KKR in 2018 and appointed as captain, Dinesh had a dream season with 498 runs in 16 innings at a strike rate of 148.

4. Moises Henriques

One of the good all-rounders, especially in the T20 format and has usually done well for whichever teams he has played for. While he didn’t do much in his initial couple of years in the IPL when he was brought into the RCB in 2013, scoring just 165 runs in 10 matches and picking seven wickets. However, RCB felt this performance wasn’t good enough to keep him, and he was taken in by Sunrisers Hyderabad the following year. While he didn’t do much in 2014, in 2015-2017 he became the player RCB was looking for.

Scoring 287, 182, and 277 runs in the upcoming years batting in the middle-order and picked up a total of 23 wickets in 2015 and 2016. He was an integral part of the Sunrisers’ outfit in their title-winning year in 2016.

5. Shane Watson

An intriguing player right from the inception in 2008, spent most of his career in Rajasthan Royals before moving to RCB in  2016. The franchise spent a huge sum of INR 9.5 crores. While Watson just couldn’t get going with the bat the full season scoring just 179 runs in 16 games, he did a wonderful job with the ball, picking up 20 wickets.

Watson even took charge of the team in Kohli’s absence, however, his struggles continued in 2017 and he could score only 71 runs in eight matches, picking five wickets and with RCB, assuming him as a spent force, he was let into the pool. CSK swopped in on Watson in 2018 and the rest is history. He scored a massive 555 in 15 games which included scintillating match-winning innings of 117* in the finals.

In 2019 once again he had a decent enough season, scoring 398 runs in 17 matches, and almost single-handedly helping CSK win the second trophy.