NEWS
Follow UsAt the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction last month, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) had to take quite a few tough calls, including not getting back their incumbent skipper Faf du Plessis.
Yet the toughest call the franchise made at the auction, by some distance, was the decision not to bring back Mohammed Siraj, who’d been a core member of the team for over half a decade.
Gujarat Titans (GT) secured Siraj’s services for INR 12.50 crore, but RCB were expected to use the Right To Match (RTM) card they had at their disposal. But much to the shock of many, the franchise opted not to use the RTM on Siraj, bidding goodbye to their association with the speedster, who was a very popular figure amongst fans.
So why did RCB completely let go of Siraj?
“It is important to recognise what Siraj has done for RCB over a number of years. He's been a champion player for us. I massively enjoyed working with him last year, and I think I might have mentioned publicly that not retaining him was one of our tougher decisions, if not the toughest,” RCB Team Director Mo Bobat told ESPNCricinfo.
“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.
“Unfortunately, it didn't work out for us to get Siraj just because of our priorities, auction order and the spending pattern.”
Bobat explained that, Siraj aside, RCB were keen on bringing back two other players - du Plessis and Will Jacks - but ultimately weren’t able to do so due to auction dynamics.
“That's again quite similar for a couple of other players, both Faf and Will Jacks were definitely guys we were considering right-to-matching (RTM) if things fell a certain way,” Bobat said.
“But the lesson I've learned is, you can't be too precise with who you think you're going to get. Will Jacks is a great example. I'm incredibly fond of Will, and he was brilliant last year when he came into the team. He 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. 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,” the RCB Director explained.
Overall, Siraj played 87 games for RCB between 2018 and 2024 and picked up 83 wickets. He spearheaded the pace attack in the previous cycle, taking 43 wickets for the franchise between 2022 & 2024.
