Indian Cricket fans were shocked when Royal Challengers Bangalore didn’t retain Yuzvendra Chahal in IPL 2022 Mega Auction. As a result, the dominant leggie was roped in Rajasthan Royals. Former RCB Director of Operations, Mike Hesson has gone on to reveal why Chahal wasn’t retained by the Bangalore outfits.
Chahal began his IPL stint when he was bought by Mumbai Indians in 2011. Back in 2014, he was bought by RCB, who again went on to retain him in 2018. But 4 years later in 2022, he was not retained by the Challengers.
“I spoke to Yuzi (Yuzvendra Chahal) obviously when we did the initial retention and we only retained three players because we felt we wanted to try and buy back both Harshal Patel and Yuzi at the auction. Probably the thing that I’m really frustrated about even now is as you said Yuzi is probably one of the top five players of all time for RCB but he was also one of the best ever in the IPL and the fact that he couldn’t make the top two marquee lists at that time was ridiculous,” Mike Hesson told Cricket.com.
Hesson went on to reveal that Chahal was on their radar. Despite not being retained, RCB had plans to buy Chahal along with Harshal Patel. RCB decided to retain only three players for the IPL 2022 Mega Auction. Hesson claimed that Chahal was not included in the two marquee list was ridiculous.
The former RCB chief said that Chahal was frustrated and upset with the decision. He further claimed that since Chahal came up in number 65 during the auction, it was difficult to buy the player.
“The fact that he came in number 65 on the auction list means that it was really difficult for us to guarantee we were going to get him. I remember ringing Yuzi afterwards and he was upset. It was very difficult to try and explain to him the auction dynamics at that time. He was visibly disinterested, and I don’t blame him. He was an RCBian and he was frustrated. But I can assure everyone that he is well-aware of the issues we were confronted with,” Hesson concluded.