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RCB’s English trio, Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone, and Jacob Bethell, faced backlash after poor performances in the 1st T20I against India. Fans mocked their ability to handle spin.
Phil Salt (L), Liam Livingstone (M) and Jacob Bethell (R) have all been picked up by RCB in the IPL 2025 mega auction. (Image: Sportzpics)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s newest English trio, Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone and Jacob Bethell and faced the wrath of the fans on social media after their disappointing performance against India in the 1st T20I in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The latest additions were shown no mercy as the Bengaluru-based franchise were given unwanted spotlight after the T20I series-opener. Asked to bat first, the visitors were put in a spot of bother with Arshdeep Singh striking in the third delivery, dismissing Salt for a duck.
Next in line was none other than Liam Livingstone, who has been known to swing hard. But this time, he was bamboozled by the wrong-un which came in and crashed onto the stumps as the Englishman fell for the second duck of the innings.
All eyes were on the young all-rounder, Jacob Bethell and how he would fare in his first attempt, playing in Indian conditions. He seemed to struggle to get going for the most part and was eventually dismissed by Hardik Pandya thanks to a brilliant catch by Abhishek Sharma by the deep mid-wicket region.
Its safe to say that the RCB’s English trio did not have a great time in Kolkata and fans were vocal about this as memes started pouring in on X (formerly known as Twitter).
One fan came up with a witty moniker to call the RCB trio following their dissapointing performance in the T20I series-opener. He said, “Agents 007 Of RCB”.
Ducks for RCB blood Phil Salt and Livingstone mf they can’t play Varun Chakravarthy at Eden garden how these guys play noor ahmed and jadeja ashwin at chepauk pic.twitter.com/Rzf2yGD0Sd— 𝑃𝑖𝑘𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑢☆•° (@11eleven_4us) January 22, 2025
Another fan questioned the English IPL stars’ ability to bat against spin and how they would fare against Chennai Super Kings and their spin-trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Noor Ahmad at the spin-friendly conditions at Chepauk, if they were undone by Varun Chakravarthy.
This user just couldn’t help himself but take a dig at the Bengaluru-based franchise that has yet to win their maiden title. He said, “No matter how strong you are or where you are from, once you join RCB, the jinx finds you like it has got GPS”.
Yet another fan followed suit and shared a hilarious meme depicting RCB’s predicament with the fans.
The Bengaluru fans would hope that the trio can come back stronger in the coming games. With four more games left along with the three-match ODI series, there is still plenty of time for them to redeem themselves.
