Jadhav or De Villiers will take up the wicket-keeping duties for RCB: Daniel Vettori

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) injury-spree have paved way to several issues in batting, bowling, and wicket-keeping. With Rahul pulling out of the tournament and Kohli set to miss a large chunk of the tournament, the onus is on the likes of Kedar Jadhav and Ab de Villiers to share the wicket-keeping duties as well as captaincy load.

It was earlier announced by the Royal Challengers that Rahul, due to his shoulder injury, is set to miss the entire tournament. Coach Vettori stated, “Owing to a shoulder injury, KL Rahul will be travelling for his treatment and thus will be unavailable to play as a part of the RCB squad this IPL”. This was a huge blow to the Bangalore-based team as KL Rahul was the third highest runs getter in the previous edition and also proved handy behind the wickets.

However, Vettori remained optimistic about the possible options within the Bangalore squad rather than looking for personnel outside the pool. Bangalore team is looking at possible services from Kedhar Jadhav and AB de Villiers. Even though AB de Villiers has given up keeping for his national side due to a chronic back problem, he has stepped in at any event of an emergency. Few instances can be traced in the recent past where AB took charge behind the wickets- one being in the 2013-14 series down-under and other during the period when both Vilas and De Kock were dropped from the team.

Over the years, the Royal Challengers have been devoid of any permanent wicket-keeping option, constantly shuffling between Arun Karthik, Parthiv Patel and KL Rahul. This may be attributed to the fact of their affinity to play an extra batsman every time they step out on the field.

It will be interesting to see if De Villiers takes up the additional responsibility of keeping apart from captaincy and batting or gamble in Kedhar Jadhav for this discipline.