RCB's home truth: Flailing, failing and falling behind

Early in Punjab Kings' modest chase of 95, Virat Kohli turned into a mime artist at slip. With animated gestures, he signalled to his captain Rajat Patidar, posted all the way at mid-on, to shift a deep fielder squarer. Kohli theatrically sealed the skit with an imaginary pull shot and a ballooning ball. Next delivery, Bhuvneshwar Kumar dug it in. Prabhsimran Singh obliged. And just as Kohli had drawn it up, the miscue floated, only to drop inches short of Yash Dayal at deep square-leg.

Over three games at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, a pattern has emerged, both in and outside the PowerPlays: fast bowlers with mid-on and mid-wicket in, grass left vacant out in front of square, horizontal bat shots invited, and the pitch coaxed to misbehave. As it turns out, it's RCB who've kept taking the bait: three home games, three falls, each one a mirror held up to their own blueprint in what's otherwise been a very promising first half of the season.

The numbers are damning. In RCB's previous home game, Delhi Capitals seamers bowled 27 back-of-good-length deliveries, which yielded just 26 runs and claimed two wickets. At least three Delhi batters - Faf du Plessis, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abishek Porel - themselves were caught in the cross-batted trap.

And yet, against Punjab Kings, the lessons weren't learned. After being put in to bat, RCB's top order flailed and failed again, swinging across the line and losing their wickets cheaply. Arshdeep Singh began with a full delivery to Phil Salt in search of swing and was driven for four. The India seamer didn't long to pull back his length had Salt caught in the trap. Arshdeep then got Kohli, who couldn't clear mid-on with his attempted pull. Liam Livingstone tried to manufacture length by charging out to Xavier Bartlett and holed out. Krunal Pandya too tried and failed with the pull.

The sight of a miscue ballooning up and falling into the hands of a fielder inside the circle has become all too familiar in Bengaluru this season. 47 deliveries from PBKS' pacers were marked at good (six-to-eight metres from the stumps) or just back-of-good length and they cost just 50 runs, bringing five RCB wickets. By the start of the seventh over, RCB were 33 for 5, already chasing the game.

Plenty of column inches have already been devoted to RCB's surprise at how their home has behaved and Josh Hazlewood, who had another productive outing, summed it up succinctly after the game: "Yeah, I think it's not a typical Chinnaswamy wicket. Obviously the bounce has always been there, but in past years it's probably been more consistent. I find if you really hit the wicket hard on that six to eight metres, it's quite tough to bat and we've found that."

To be fair, RCB haven't had the rub of the green either. Patidar has lost all three tosses, forcing his side to work out a par score each time, an inherent disadvantage on a ground with a notorious reputation for being difficult to defend. Friday's game was also truncated to 14-overs-a-side, forcing them to push harder. But then comes the RCB paradox. For years, they were criticised for under-utilising their batting firepower at a venue made for big totals, often leaning on an anchor and leaving their best hitters with too little runway. Now, having assembled a deep line-up of hitters and embraced a full-throttle batting approach, they find themselves saddled with a surface that might just reward a touch of that old-school, slow-burn method of innings building.

"Maybe it might be a case of pulling back a touch and having a look... giving yourself a little bit of time," Hazlewood reckoned. "I know in the first two games we lost here it was a batter down the team going big and getting a partnership and scoring big late in the game. So if we can have a top five, top six doing the batting for the 20 overs, I think that will go a long way to helping us win."

For a team desperate to end a title drought, though, two stumbles, that weren't mere coincidences as Patidar pointed out, should have already sparked some course correction. As KL Rahul showed with his chasing masterclass of tempered aggression the other night, the runs are there to be had, just slightly later in the innings, if one is shrewd enough to pick the right bowlers, the right lengths, and the right shots. Even tonight, Tim David waited for his moment and took Harpreet Brar for 21 in a single over. Nehal Wadhera cashed in when Suyash Sharma missed his lengths during a tight phase in the chase. RCB, in contrast, have tried to stay true to their doctrine but have ended up in strange positions, like their ace spin-hitter Patidar falling to (admittedly high-quality) spin twice (Kuldeep, Chahal) on a pitch where fast bowlers have posed the biggest challenge off the deck.

Doubling the dose of irony, it was a PBKS batter, Marcus Stoinis, who sealed this match shut with a cross-batted swipe, the very shot that has repeatedly undone RCB this season. A fitting full stop to a familiar story.

RCB could've been nudging the top of the table instead of jostling in mid-table traffic had they won even one of their three home games so far, because they've looked the part on the road. As Director of Cricket Mo Bobat put it, there are no extra points for home wins, but failing to capitalise on familiar conditions heaps pressure on away fixtures where teams rock up and are expected to adapt on the go. They've shown they can improvise on the fly, but it is time to deliver by design.

The good news? Four more chances remain in the second half, including a crunch run-in with three of their last four games scheduled at the Chinnaswamy. If a playoffs push is on the agenda, some level of adaptability and home mastery is non-negotiable.