Did Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) make a blunder with Josh Hazlewood? RCB released the Australian pacer ahead of Indian Premier League (IPL 2024 Auction). But now, he is apparently coming back. He has reportedly registered for IPL auction alongside Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. It raises two questions: Will he play in IPL? Is it another RCB blunder?
A total of 1,166 have registered their names which includes the former RCB star.
Josh Hazlewood’s participation in IPL 2024 has been a major doubt. As per reports, the Aussie quick is expecting birth of his first child during IPL. And this could be one of the main reasons for RCB to do away with their star bowler. But now, to everyone’s surprise, Hazlewood has registered his name for the IPL 2024 Auction.
In the auction, 77 player slots will be available for teams to fill their squads which will include 30 foreigners. Hazlewood has kept his base price at 2 Crore.
Josh Hazlewood featured for RCB in IPL 2023 for just 3 games. He managed to scalp 3 wickets from those games with an economy of 8.44. Despite missing the majority of IPL 2023, fans expected RCB to retain their star bowler for this season. Former RCB star AB de Villiers too was surprised with the move.
As per reports, Hazlewood is expecting the birth of his child in March which can be the main reason for RCB releasing the player. If reports are to be believed, the Aussie star will miss the first half of IPL 2024.
“Especially, Hazlewood is a bowler who could have hold up RCB bowling line-up together. This is another surprising move for me,” AB de Villiers said.
“They (RCB) let go of Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, and Josh Hazlewood. Those three have won them a lot of games in the last couple of seasons, especially Hazlewood; he had just this way of controlling that bowling lineup,” De Villiers concluded.
