Snehada kadalalli. . . .: We are the Challengers. . . .

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Coach:	Ray Jennings
Captain:	Anil Kumble
Colours:
Founded:	2008
Home ground:	M. Chinnaswamy Stadium (Capacity: 45000)
Owner:	Dr. Vijay Mallya
Official website:	Royal Challengers Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Coach: Ray Jennings

Captain: Anil Kumble

Colours:

Founded: 2008

Home ground: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium (Capacity: 45000)

Owner: Dr. Vijay Mallya

Official website: Royal Challengers Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore is a franchise, cricket team based in the city of Bangalore. The team is owned by the business magnate Vijay Mallya, through his flagship firm UB Group.Anil Kumble is the captain, Rahul Dravid is the team's Icon Player, while Ray Jennings, is the coach.

Franchise history

Indian Premier League is a cricket tournament being organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and backed by theInternational Cricket Council (ICC). For the inaugural tournament held in Apr-Jun 2008, the BCCI had finalised a list of 8 teams who will be participating in the tournament. The teams representing 8 different cities of India, including Bangalore, were put up on auction in Mumbai on 20 February 2008 and the Bangalore team was won by Vijay Mallya, who paid US$111.6 million for it. This was the second highest bid for a team in the IPL, next only to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries' bid of $111.9 million for the Mumbai team. Bollywood actresses Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone, and Sandalwood film stars Ramya and Puneeth Rajkumar are the brand ambassadors of the team.

2008 IPL Season

Main article: 2008 Indian Premier League

The team won 4 matches in this season, losing 10 matches and managed to secure only the last but one position in the points table. Only one of their batsman, Rahul Dravid managed to score more than 300 runs in the tournament and they had to even bench their costliest foreign player, Jacques Kallis, for a few of the matches due to his poor form. The string of failures mid-way through the season led to the sacking of the CEO, Charu Sharma who was replaced with Brijesh Patel. Even coach Venkatesh Prasad was about to be sacked, but he saved his job by publicly apologising for the team's failure. Vijay Mallya went on to publicly criticise Dravid and Sharma for the failures by saying that they had not selected the right team. He regretted that he had made a mistake by not getting involved in the selection of the team. They were the only team in the IPL to try out 11 opening combinations in 14 games. Eventually the chief cricketing officer, Martin Croweresigned. It was decided that from 2009 IPL session onwards the team would be coached by former South Africa Coach Ray Jennings.

2009 IPL Season

Main article: 2009 Indian Premier League

The team started with a win against defending champions Rajasthan Royals but quickly went on to loose a few games afterwards under the captaincy of Kevin Pietersen. However, he had to leave for national duty and captaincy was taken over by former Indian Test captain Anil Kumble. The team fortunes reversed and they beat Deccan Chargers to secure a 3rd place after the round robin stage in IPL2. In the semi final they beat the Chennai Super Kings convincingly who were led by M.S.Dhoni and crushed their hopes of winning the title. However they lost the final by 6 runs, in a close match to Deccan Chargers. Also Manish Pandey became the first Indian to score a century in IPL when he made 114*(73) against Deccan Chargers in their last match in the league phase.

2010 IPL Season

Main article: 2010 Indian Premier League

Challengers had a mixed round of success in the third edition of the IPL. The team slumped to a defeat in their first match against the Knight Riders but came back strongly to win the next four games which started off with the highest successful run chase in IPL 2010 and the second highest successful run chase in IPL history against Kings XI Punjab at Bangalore. This win was followed by comprehensive wins against the Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings. Kallis and Uthappa were in tremendous form with the bat whileKumble was miserly with the ball, Steyn fast and accurate and Vinay Kumar wily picking wickets at the right time. However the team lost the next two games and after a roller coaster ride managed to sneak into the semis for the second consecutive season by virtue of their healthy net run rate beating Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders both of whom had equal number of wins and losses as the Bangalore outfit. In the semifinal the Challengers put on a shoddy display after beginning well to concede 77 runs during the last 5 overs of the Mumbai innings and did not bat well to lose the match by 35 runs. The team had the final laugh after they beat the defending champions Deccan Chargersagainst whom they lost the previous year's final, by beating them all end's up by 9 wickets to finish third for the season and thereby book a slot in the 2010 Champions League Twenty20.

Etymology

Vijay Mallya wanted to associate one of his top-selling liquor brands, either No. 1 McDowell's or Royal Challenge with the team. The latter was chosen, hence the name. The jersey colours of the team are red and golden yellow, the same as the Karnataka state flag , and the logo consists of the RC emblem with "Royal Challengers Bangalore" in standard format.