Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) opener Devdutt Padikkal made his IPL debut last season and he ended up as the top scorer for his franchise; leaving the likes of AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli behind. 

RCB head coach Simon Katich lauded Padikkal and said he paid off the trust shown in him. Katich also pointed out that the RCB youngsters like Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, and Mohammed Siraj were the other players who did well in the season. 

"We felt the last season there were lots of positives. For the first time in a number of years, we got to the playoffs. But the other part is we did back in the young Indian talents,” Katich said on a video posted by the official handle of RCB.

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“We backed the young kid at the top of the order - Devdutt Padikkal. He did not let us down, he was brilliant. We backed Washington Sundar, he played a full season, he was outstanding. He has now played some good cricket for India. We backed in young Siraj (Mohammed Siraj) and Saini (Navdeep Saini) with the ball, they played almost the entire season for us.

"So these four young Indian players there we backed in and gave games on top of Virat Kohli and Yuzvendra Chahal who are very experienced players so we felt like we gained a lot from that. Experience from them and developing a core of Indian players."

RCB managed to reach the playoff last season with 7 wins, but they failed to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator. They had failed to reach the playoffs in three consecutive seasons before IPL 2020. The Virat Kohli-led side will be facing Mumbai Indians in the first match of the IPL 2021.