Yuzvendra Chahal, the India and Royal Challengers Bangalore leg-spinner, has highlighted the issues faced by the Virat Kohli-led franchise in the IPL over the years.

RCB have made the IPL final three times in their history, but are yet to win the tournament. Moreover, they have failed to get past the league stage in the last three seasons, even with the likes of Kohli and AB de Villiers in their ranks.

Chahal, who joined the Bengaluru-based franchise in 2014, believes it’s their death bowling that has hurt them time and again. But he is optimistic for the 2020 IPL, claiming that in Navdeep Saini, Dale Steyn, Chris Morris and Umesh Yadav, they now have a formidable death-bowling line-up.

“I have played for RCB for six years now,” he said while in conversation with Akash Chopra, “the one constant issue we have had – other than the year we had Starc – is our death-over bowling. We keep things tight till the 16th-17th over, but I feel we have lost at least 30 per cent of our matches due to our bowling in the last three overs.

“If you have restricted a team to 130-odd after 16 overs, you get the feeling that we can keep them down to 160 or at the most 170. But at times, due to the last three overs, the opposition ends up scoring 190 or 200. So that changes the whole scenario.

Dhoni has been instrumental in the rise of India’s devastating spin duo of Kuldeep and Yuzvendra Chahal.https://t.co/ZnDNaXb6dE

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) July 4, 2020

“But as far as death-bowling is concerned, I’m much more confident this year as for the first time I feel that we have enough options at the death. [Navdeep] Saini has matured, [Dale] Steyn Sir is there, [Chris]Morris has come and then we have Umesh [Yadav] bhaiya. So we have quite a few options as compared to other years.

“Now we have three-four options to bowl the last few overs. So I think we have worked on that one aspect that we were falling short on in the previous editions.”