Yuzvendra Chahal is one of the best players in the IPL and has taken the most wickets in the history of the league, but somehow Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) let him go in the mega auctions of 2022. Chahal has spoken a few times that the franchise did not adequately communicate to him that they were not going after him in the auctions. Now, former RCB director of cricket Mike Hesson has revealed all the details about the Yuzvendra Chahal auction fiasco.
Mike Hesson revealed the reason why RCB could not acquire Yuzvendra Chahal in the IPL 2022 auctions where he was bought by Rajasthan Royals. He said that the franchise was planning to buy back both Harshal Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal, but Chahal was not even in the list of top 2 featured players. Even after being one of the best players in the IPL, Yuzvendra Chahal returned to the 65th spot in the list.
“Look, Yuzi (Yuzvendra Chahal) was told a huge amount and I know this because I was the guy on the other end of the phone, so you know I spoke to Yuzi obviously when we did the initial hold and you know we only held three. players because we felt we wanted to try to buy back both Harshal and Yuzi at the auction. By retaining only three players, he gave us an extra four million rupees to try to do that and that didn’t mean that four million rupees came from the three retained players,” Mike Hesson told Cricket.com.
“Probably what really frustrates me even now is that, like you said, Yuzi is probably one of the five best players of all time for RCB, but he was also one of the best in the IPL and the fact that he couldn’t. “To be in the top two spots on the Marquee charts at the time was ridiculous and the fact that it was at number 65, I think it was on the auction list, meant that it was really difficult for us to guarantee that we were going to get it,” he added.
Watch: Mike Hesson explains what happened between Yuzvendra Chahal and RCB
Complete Chahal auction explained by Hesson
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Royal Challengers Bangalore finished sixth last season and as a result, they made some adjustments to the coaching and support staff. Mike Hesson has been replaced by Mo Bobat as director of cricket and this season the team looks a little different following the arrival of players such as Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph and Tom Curran. RCB are yet to win an IPL trophy and this season they are ready to give their all to win the championship title.
RCB is one of the teams that has competed since the tournament began in 2008 and has failed to win the title even after qualifying for the final three times. IPL 2024 will begin during the last week of March and is expected to bring a great cricket competition between 10 strong teams competing against each other.