29th May, 2016. RCB was cruising at 112/0 at the 10 over mark, having to chase 208. With Gayle going bonkers, Kohli warming up to the occasion of the finals, and AB de Villiers, Shane Watson and KL Rahul in the hut. RCB was coming off 5 straight wins, including the historic 144-run win against Gujarat Lions, where Kohli and de Villiers plundered runs against the hapless bowling lineup, prompting KL Rahul to state “In our heads, we have already won the IPL”. All this ignores the dream seasons that Kohli, Watson, Chahal and de Villiers were already having.

We all know what happened after that.

Some History

The franchise wasn’t all that bad earlier. Sure, it had no trophies, but had reached two finals, in 2009 and 2011, while also being reasonably successful in the Champions Trophy. Several match-winners had represented the team, including local boys Dravid and Kumble to Vettori, Kallis and Ross Taylor. In 2016, the league was only 9 editions old, and only 4 out of the 8 participating teams had won trophies anyways¹. And, besides, RCB was always known to be a flashy, larger than life team, and Vijay Mallya² made sure of that both on and off the field — with extravagant parties and pretty cheerleaders. Couple that with the star studded batting lineup that used to be a standard for RCB, and you have a perfect recipe for attracting fans. As was said those days, RCB was an entertainment team first, and a cricket team second.

I still remember the knock that made me a fervent supporter: Gayle’s 175*, all the way back in 2013 (a record that is still not broken, and might never be). I remember jumping on the bed, going off about how RCB was amongst the greatest teams to ever play the IPL. Extremely cliché to support a team at its highs, but I began watching nearly every RCB match since then. Little did I know that from then on, for 2 months every year, my mental health would be held hostage by a band of 11 men who barely knew me

A slogan or a curse?

2016 was followed by some of the most disastrous stretches of cricket a franchise might ever see. In 2017, RCB would end up as the wooden spoon holder for the first time in its history. Releasing Chris Gayle the following year after a few years of his downward form, was amongst saddest moments for an RCB fan, for it meant the end of an era. The results didn’t improve much regardless, even though RCB was in the race for qualification until its final game. 2019 again saw RCB not doing much better, placing last again (despite being only 1 point off the top 4). 

Some of its most humiliating losses came in these years as well. 2017 saw RCB stumble and crash to the lowest IPL score in its (then) nascent history, with batsmen’s scores reading like a phone number. 2019 witnessed a poor 16 year old Prayas Ray Barman getting flogged to all parts of the park while David Warner and Jonny Bairstow amassed the then highest opening IPL partnership (185/0). Somewhere in between, a wise person in the RCB marketing team decided to market the then informal slogan of “Ee Sala Cup Namde” (translating to “This year, the cup is ours”), only to end up haunting fans over the years.

A Light That Never Comes

In the 2020s, RCB has been amongst the most successful teams in the tournament, possessing a win-loss ratio of 1.225, only behind Gujarat Titans. Its success, heralded by Mike Hesson and carried forward by Andy Flower, has moved away from its template of “The Big Three and Inshallah”, and has moved to make a more stable and complete side. The past 5 years had seen 4 playoff qualifications, narrowly missing 2023. Every time, however, RCB had fumbled clearing the final hurdles in front of them. 2020? Losing the last 4 games to fumble a straightforward chance to Qualifier 1, eventually being knocked out in the Eliminator. 2021 had a different script play out, with the same result of a 4th place finish. Rajat Patidar, their injury replacement for Luvnith Sisodia,  managed to bail out the team in 2022 with a stunning century in the Eliminator, but the team fumbled the next step. 2024 was perhaps the closest one got to believing, going from a mathematical possibility³ of qualification to the 4th place in one of the greatest runs to the playoffs (only next to KKR 2021, where they came from 8th to runners up). And yet, the cries of ‘Ee Saala Cup Namde’ never really stopped ringing around Chinnaswamy, and the rest of Bengaluru, when things came closer to the 2025 season.

It is hope that kills you. The hope of a trophy, particularly after 2016, is what crushed RCB fans year after year. And yet, Chinnaswamy was never empty, never in its worst of times and certainly never in the best of times. Perhaps buoyed by the performance from last year, fans from all over the country came to their feet. For this time around, you could actually hear “Aar-Cee-Bee” all over the country,  from Ekana to Ahmedabad⁴, and from Eden Gardens to Chepauk and Wankhede, stadiums where one would usually have massive home crowds. And yet, there was this fear of jinxing their chances and bringing the animosity of Lady Luck, for fans had been through it all.

Danish Sait, known more famously in his character of Mr. Nags, epitomises a real, eternally hopeful RCB fan. In his satirical press conference put on the RCB YouTube channel after Qualifier 1, there were repeated requests to the ‘journalists’ to not prematurely celebrate or curse the team, for there was the most important match to play to actually win the cup. Adorning the video were a lemon and chilli and a Drishti Bommai, to ward off the evil eye. In response to a question, he pulled out a see-saw, stating, “RCB has played with our feelings for so many years, sometimes see [pushing the see-saw to one side], sometimes saw [pushing the see-saw to the other side]…2009, 2011, 2016, I was there…This year, I want to keep my expectations low, support the team, give them good vibes.” And that is exactly what the fans do year after year, only this time, their dream has given way to reality.

1. Pune Warriors India and Kochi Tuskers Kerala were horrible beyond comparison, to the point where they can be excluded from any meaningful aggregate measures; and Sunrisers Hyderabad can be considered the spiritual successors of Deccan Chargers. ↩︎
2.  While Mallya is now well-known for defaulting on his loans, back in the day he was much more well known for his flamboyant lifestyle. The “King of Good Times” isn’t just a slogan, but what Mallya embodied. ↩︎
3.  0.92%, to be exact. u/amerind186 helpfully puts up the numbers around the mark of elimination every year, and his post interesting started the upward trend for the team as well. ↩︎
4.  No, I will not name the stadium because of the horrible bait and switch done to appease a certain political entity. ↩︎