Royal Challengers Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is the team in Indian Premier League, representing Bangalore city. Rahul Dravid, former skipper of Indian cricket team, is the captain of RCB while Ray Jennings is its coach, who was formerly the coach of South African cricket team. RCB also has Venkatesh Prasad as its bowling coach.

Royal Challengers Bangalore is owned by Vijay Mallya through his UB group which is one of the largest liquor manufacturers of the world. Vijay Mallya paid $111.6 millions for buying the rights of Bangalore franchise in the IPL auctions held in early 2008. This was the second highest bid for an IPL team, next only to RIL's $111.9 millions for Mumbai Indians.

Royal Challengers Bangalore has bollywood celebrities, Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif, and Sandalwood film stars, Ramya and Upendra as its brand ambassadors. Also, the team has Brijesh Patel as its CEO.

The name Royal Challenger is drawn from Mallya's top selling brand Royal Challenge. The logo consists of the RC emblem with "Royal Challengers Bangalore" in standard format while the jersey colors of RCB are red and golden yellow. RCB also has a theme song called "Thakkath Geete", composed in with the help of TV9.

RCB In 2008 IPL Season
RCB had a meager performance in 2008 season of IPL, winning just 4 matches out of 14 played. It finished second last in the tournament. Only the skipper Rahul Dravid managed to secure more than 300 runs. Jacques Kallis who was their most expensive foreign player had to be rested due to poor form, which too cost the RCB dearly. It was an unexpected string of failures that even led to RCB's CEO Charu Sharma being replaced with Brijesh Patel mid-way through the season.

Vijay Mallya not only sacked Charu Sharma but also criticized the captain for not selecting the right team. Venkatesh Prasad however, calmed tempers by publicly apologizing for the team's bad perfromance.

RCB's Current Squad
1. Rahul Dravid
2. Anil Kumble
3. Wasim Jaffer
4. Praveen Kumar Devraj Patil
5. Bharat Chipli
6. Jacques Kallis
7. Mark Boucher
8. Dale Steyn
9. Nathan Bracken
10. Cameron White
11. Misbah-ul-Haq
12. Dillon du Preez
13. Ross Taylor
14. Kevin Pieterson
15. Jesse Ryder
16. K.P. Appanna
17. J. Arun Kumar
18. Virat Kohli
19. Sreevats Goswami
20. Sunil Joshi
21. Vinay Kumar
22. Balachandra Akhil
23. Manish Pandey
24. Robin Uthapa
25. Gaurav Dhiman
26. Pankaj Singh