The team director of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Mo Bobat, has revealed that the franchise didn’t use their Right To Match (RTM) card during the recent mega auction of the tournament for their veteran players, in the form of captain Faf du Plessis, the dashing opener Will Jacks and Indian pacer, Mohammad Siraj.
RCB headed into the bidding war with the second-biggest purse and three available RTM cards. The expectation was to see him going for Siraj or Faf or Jacks without a second thought after they retained their star batter and former captain Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, and the uncapped left-arm pacer, Yash Dayal.
On the very first day of the auction, the 2011-runners up opted not to use the RTM card for Siraj, which raised a few eyebrows from the fanbase and the experts. But Mo Bobat shed light on why they decided to take a different route during a recent interview with ESPNcricinfo.
Mo Bobat responds on not using an RTM card for former captain and veteran pacer
Mo Bobat revealed that there are a lot of things that would need to fall in place for any of the activities in the auction. He confirmed that Siraj, the third leading wicket take for the franchise in the IPL with 83 scalps in 87 innings at an average of 31.44 and an economy rate of 8.60, was one of their RTM picks but they had to keep the money for planned Bhuvneshwar Kumar who arrived late in the table.
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Kumar, for a long time, was with the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the league’s history to be the fourth-highest wicket-taker with 181 scalps in 176 innings at an average of 27.23 and an economy rate of 7.56.
“We had Bhuvi quite high on our list, and we wanted to give ourselves a chance to get him. Unfortunately, the way auctions work out, with Bhuvi coming quite late, it’s like a game of poker to hold your nerve and see whether you can hold on and wait for a player, and sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. Mo Bobat expressed this during an interaction on ESPNcricinfo.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for us to get Siraj just because of our priorities, auction order, and the spending pattern.” The team director of the ‘Play Bold franchise fought hard to buy Bhuvneshwar on the second day of the auction.
They didn’t go for Faf Du Plessis, who was their leader in the last three seasons of the event from 2022 and has emerged as the fourth leading run-getter of the side with 1636 runs in 45 innings at an average of 147 with the help of 15 half-centuries.
“That’s again quite similar for a couple of other players, both Faf and Will Jacks were guys we were considering right-to-matching (RTM) if things fell a certain way.” Mo Bobat explained in the conversation with ESPNcricinfo.
“He (Jacks) was definitely someone we were thinking of right-to-matching, but if you wait as deep as he was coming up in the auction, having not filled a role, that is a risk, and given the way the spending pattern works out and given that we missed one or two of our targets, and we had probably a bit more money than we anticipated, you have to make decisions.” The team director of the RCB franchise highlighted.
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Will Jacks also had a great time in the league’s previous edition with 230 runs in eight innings at an average of 32.85 and a strike rate of 175.57 with one century.
“So regrettably, Faf, Jacks, and Siraj were guys we had in our minds for right-to-matches, but it just didn’t fall that way, and you end up building your team slightly differently, which is a shame.” Mo Bobat concluded.