RCB squandered their IPL 2024 campaign at the auction table, not on the cricket pitch

Ahead of the IPL 2024 auction, Mumbai Indians acquired Hardik Pandya from Gujarat Titans and appointed him as captain, replacing Rohit Sharma. Such was the stature of the names involved that the trade that helped them achieve this got buried.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru got Cameron Green from Mumbai Indians for INR 17.5 crore – a price tag that had made him the second-most expensive cricketer at IPL 2023, after Sam Curran. In fact, Curran and Green had been the most expensive acquisitions at any auction in IPL history until the 2024 edition.

By dishing out this astronomical amount for Green, RCB entered the 2024 auction with a purse of INR 23.25 crore. It could have been lower, but they had let Shahbaz Ahmed (INR 2.4 crore) go to Sunrisers Hyderabad in return for Mayank Dagar (1.8 crore). They had up to six slots to fill, of whom three could be overseas.

When RCB entered the auction, their batting unit comprised Will Jacks, Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, and Green. It was one overseas batter too many, one could see. Du Plessis, the RCB captain, Maxwell, an IPL and T20 great, and Green, for whom they had shelled out a mammoth fee, would be locks in the XI, leaving one more overseas slot to fill. As talented a hitter as Jacks has had to warm the bench so far. On the other hand, the bowling looked weak after they released Josh Hazlewood (he was expected to be unavailable for half the season) and Wanindu Hasaranga.

Mohammed Siraj was their main Indian fast bowler. Akash Deep is yet to have an IPL season of note. The exciting Vijaykumar Vyshak was too new. Reece Topley was their only overseas bowler, pace or spin. Apart from Dagar, the only spinner with reasonable experience was Karn Sharma. The bowling had a threadbare look to it.

They needed several bowlers of quality, especially spinners. When Hasaranga’s name came up, Sunrisers acquired him at base price. Fair enough, you might have thought – when RCB had let him go, surely they had plans to pick other spinners, Indian or overseas, of quality.

Then came Pat Cummins, a world champion captain in the two longer formats in 2023 but a man with an ordinary T20 record. He had not played in the format since November 2022. That year, he had gone at 9.03 across 18 matches. At the IPL, his economy read 8.54, and his 45 wickets from 42 matches had come at 30.15 apiece. It was, at best, an acceptable record.

RCB chose to go broke for Cummins. It took SRH what was then an IPL record amount (INR 20.50 crore) to stop them – all this, when they could not play more than one overseas bowler and already had an overseas fast bowler and had no spin attack to match the other teams. That they failed to win Cummins was perhaps a blessing in disguise.

Where RCB could have been aggressive was in the next round, of capped pacers. They did, but by spending INR 11.5 crore (nearly half their budget) on Alzarri Joseph, a fine fast bowler but not exceptional. Since they could pick at most only one overseas fast bowler, it was probably a redundant pick as well. Later that day, their team management explained the reason.

“He has pace, bowls from a high release point which gives him bounce, he’s a recognised death bowler and our captain is a fan of Alzarri.”

Director of Cricket Mo Bobat explains Auction Order, Judgement Calls, Competition Analysis and everything that led to bagging Alzarri… pic.twitter.com/PH8iEnrnlM

— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) December 19, 2023

Sound reasoning, perhaps. But in the same round, they watched as other franchises snapped up Chetan Sakariya (INR 50 lakh), Umesh Yadav (5.8 crore), Shivam Mavi (6.4 crore), and Jaydev Unadkat (1.6 crore). All of them would have cost them substantially less than Joseph. All of them were Indians, too.

To be fair, RCB did regain some lost ground by getting Yash Dayal on board. But by the time the teams entered the accelerated auction, it became evident that they needed some Indian seamers – for they could play only overseas fast bowler.

They also needed one quality spinner, if not more. If not, they were set to rely on Dagar and Karn along with the part-timers. The RCB fans waited with bated breath. With INR 6.75 still in the purse, their team still had a chance.

They were outbid for M Siddharth by Lucknow Super Giants, and did not go in for Shreyas Gopal, snapped up at base price by Mumbai Indians. Mujeeb Ur Rahman could have bolstered their stocks as an overseas spinners. They were not keen on Hyderabad’s T Thyagarajan, bought by Punjab Kings, Mumbai all-rounder Tanush Kotian, whom Rajasthan Royals signed up, or M Ashwin, who went unsold.

RCB returned from the IPL 2024 auction with as many experienced spinners as they had gone in with.

Instead, the Royal Challengers spent INR 1.5 crore on Tom Curran and INR 2 crore on Lockie Ferguson. To sum up, they ended up selecting four overseas fast bowlers, of whom they would select at best one in the XI. RCB rounded off the auction with Swapnil Singh, one of the few survivors from IPL 2008, and Saurav Chauhan (did they really need another batter?).

Five matches into the IPL, RCB have managed to avoid the wooden spoon, but only barely. They are not the first team to have a problem at the IPL, but for them, there is no obvious solution in sight.

Not for the first time had RCB emerged from an auction with a squad that seemed to be all about batting. It was almost as if bowlers were deemed not needed – despite the fact that they were set to play half their league matches on a venue notorious for high-scoring.

This is a long-standing problem. “Bangalore have never balanced their team very well,” Rahul Dravid, former RCB captain, explained to the authors of Cricket 2.0. “I think they’ve been very poor with selections and auctions.”

They ended up putting all their money into one department, overseas power hitters. None of them has clicked: Faf du Plessis has struck at 133, Maxwell at 107, and Green and 108. To pick Jacks, they have to leave out at least one of them. It should ideally be Green, but IPL teams are known to not give up on their big-ticket purchases this early in a league.

There is no obvious Indian batter who can step in for them either. Dravid, who last played for the RCB in 2010, famously remains their second-highest run-getter among Indians, after Virat Kohli – an indicator of them never backing Indian batters.

They can pick all four overseas batters, but for that, they have to field an all-Indian bowling attack. Unfortunately, they do not have the options for that. The money they could have spent on Indian seamers was used on four overseas fast bowlers, of whom at least one, if not two, were redundant picks. And the less said about their approach towards spin on a tournament to be played in India, the better.