Bengaluru, Feb 14 (IANS): Mike Hesson, the Director of Cricket Operations at Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) finds that the overall squad built after the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 mega auction has a good balance of overseas and domestic players. He added that RCB have managed to cover all bases with players having multi-dimensional skill-sets.
Faf du Plessis, Harshal Patel, Wanindu Hasaranga, Dinesh Karthik, Josh Hazlewood, Anuj Rawat, Akash Deep, Mahipal Lomror, Finn Allen, Sherfane Rutherford, Jason Behrendorff, Suyash Prabhudessai, Chama Milind, Karn Sharma, Siddharth Kaul, Luvnith Sisodia and David Willey were picked by RCB in the two-day mega auction.
"We are very happy with the way our squad is shaped with the new inclusions around the retained talents. It is a really balanced team of overseas and domestic players. We have managed to cover all our bases with multi-dimensional skill sets and that was the key to our strategy getting into the auctions. Majority of things went as per plan considering the auction dynamics, we managed to check off all the criteria that we had set out to achieve for the RCB team," said Hesson in a release.
Hesson further explained the strategy of RCB think-tank in the mega auction and was delighted over buying back players like Patel and Hasaranga. "The strategy was to define dedicated roles for players, who we identified, and to strategically go after individual players, managing the purse wisely. We also successfully managed to get some of our RCB players back which was always an important part of our game plan.
"It is certainly an achievement with the way auction dynamics plays out and the budget remains to be a constraint, but we are very happy with the outcome. We also looked at the availability and how fast all these players just get into the groove and the preparations to form a playing XI. We are certainly excited for the upcoming season and believe we have got the arsenal to put up a quality show."
RCB chairman Prathmesh Mishra was also happy with how the auction went for RCB. "We are very pleased with the squad that we have assembled over the two days at the Tata IPL Mega Auction 2022. We have got some seasoned players who we have witnessed giving eclectic performances in the recent cricket tournaments and talented youngsters who have shown tremendous potential with their consistent efforts in their rising cricket career.
"We were very clinical in our plans and have ensured players who have a fearless attitude and embody our philosophy of Play Bold to get on this journey with us and enjoy their stint at RCB playing their style of cricket. We look forward to an exciting season of cricket entertainment with these exceptional bunch of players."