Bangalore Royal Challengers

Royal Challengers Bangalore is the team representing the city of Bangalore in the Indian Premier League Season 2 - DLF IPL 2009. Team is owned by the liquor magnate Vijay Mallya. Brijesh Patel is the CEO of the team and Rahul Dravid, the captain of the team is the Icon Player. Ray Jennings, the former South African coach, is the coach of the team and Venkatesh Prasad is the bowling coach.

Owner - Vijay Mallaya UB Group

CEO - Brijesh Patel

Ambassadors - Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Ramya, Upendra.

Coach - South Africa Ray Jennings

Captain - England Kevin Pietersen

Home Ground - M. Chinnaswamy Stadium

CEO - India Brijesh Patel


History

Bangalore team was won by Vijay Mallya, who paid US$111.6 million for it. This was the second highest bid for a team in the IPL, next only to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries' bid of $111.9 million for the Mumbai team. Bollywood actresses Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone, and Sandalwood film stars Ramya and Upendra are the brand ambassadors of the team.

2008 IPL Season

The team won only 4 matches in this season, losing 10 matches and managed to secure only the last but one position in the points table. Only one of their batsman, Rahul Dravid managed to score more than 300 runs in the tournament and they had to even bench their costliest foreign player, Jacques Kallis for few of the matches due to his poor form. The string of failures mid-way through the season led to the sacking of the CEO, Charu Sharma who was replaced with Brijesh Patel. Even coach Venkatesh Prasad was about to be sacked, but he saved his job by publicly apologising for the team's failure. Vijay Mallya went on to publicly criticise Dravid and Sharma for the failures by saying that they had not selected the right team. He regretted that he had made a mistake by not getting involved in the selection of the team. They were the only team in the IPL to try out 11 opening combinations in 14 games. Eventually the chief cricketing officer, Martin Crowe resigned. From 2009 IPL session onwards the team will be coached by former South Africa Coach Ray Jennings and Venkatesh Prasad will assist him as team's Bowling Coach.

2009 IPL Season

Kevin Pietersen made his way into RCB as one of the costliest players in IPL history. Kevin Pietersen was valued at $1.55m over a base price of $1.35m. Also Jesse Ryder from New Zealand was acquired in the auction at $160,000.

Vijay Mallya, the owner of Bangalore Royal Challengers, has kept the captaincy options open. Minutes after picking up Kevin Pietersen at USD 1.55 million, Mallaya said he was happy with the price he got him at. "The captaincy options are open. The team management will take a decision on it." The Royal Challengers, who finished second last the previous year, were led by Rahul Dravid. On March 21, 2009 Vijay Mallya announced that Kevin Pietersen was replacing Rahul Dravid as the team captain for the 2009 season.