Royal Challengers Bangalore (also referred to as RCB) is an Indian Premier League team, based in the city of Bangalore. The team is owned by the liquor magnate Vijay Mallya, through his flagship firm UB Group. Brijesh Patel is the CEO of the RCB and Kevin Pietersen is the captain. Rahul Dravid is the team's Icon Player, while Ray Jennings, the former South African coach, is the coach. Vijay Mallya paid US$111.6 million for the team. 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. 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.[9] 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. Vijay Mallya wanted to associate one of his top-selling liquor brands, either No. 1 McDowell's or Royal Challenge with the team. The latter was chosen, hence the name. The jersey colours of the team are red and golden yellow, the same as the Karnataka state flag, and the logo consists of the RC emblem with "Royal Challengers Bangalore" in standard format. A theme song called "Thakkath Geete" has been composed in support of the Red & Yellow team, with the help of TV9. The players in the team (except for Rahul Dravid, who was the Icon Player), were selected in an auction conducted by BCCI on 20 February 2008. South Africa's Jacques Kallis at $900,000 became the costliest player to be selected to play for the Royal Challengers. This meant that Rahul Dravid, being the Icon Player would be paid $1,035,000 (15% more than the highest bid player in the team). Other players selected included the former Indian Test cricket captain Anil Kumble along with his team-mates Praveen Kumar and Zaheer Khan, West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Aussies Nathan Bracken and Cameron White, South Africa's Mark Boucher (Wicket Keeper) and Dale Steyn. The team also included Pakistan cricket team's vice captain Misbah-ul-Haq although he wasn't in the playing 11 for most part of the tournament. On the last day of the 2008-2009 transfer window, Zaheer Khan was swapped with Robin Uthappa of Mumbai Indians, with no money exchanged. The team also acquired Karnataka batsman Gaurav Dhiman from Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan fast bowler Pankaj Singh from Rajasthan Royals. The team has signed Eagles fast bowler Dillon du Preez as a replacement for Zaheer Khan. Kevin Pietersen made his way into RCB as one of the costliest players in IPL history during the 2nd IPL Auction. 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.
