India pacer Mohammed Siraj wasn’t retained by Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) during the IPL 2025 mega auction in Jeddah last month.
It was expected that RCB would exercise one of the three RTM options for Siraj, but it didn’t happen as the right-arm quick was eventually signed by Gujarat Titans for INR 12.25 Crore.
Siraj was associated with RCB from 2018 to 2024. During his seven-year stint, he claimed 83 wickets in 87 matches for the Bengaluru-based franchise.
In a recent interview with ESPNCricinfo, RCB’s Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat, explained the reason behind not using RTM on Siraj.
He revealed that RCB prioritized signing Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the grand auction, which is why the team management had to make the tough decision of parting ways with 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. Not retaining him was one of our tougher decisions, if not the toughest. We had Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) 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. That’s again quite similar for a couple of other players; both Faf (du Plessis) and Will Jacks were definitely guys we were considering right-to-matching (RTM) if things fell a certain way," Bobat was quoted as saying.
“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," he added.
Will Jacks impressed one and all with his exploits in the IPL 2024 season. Playing for RCB, he amassed 230 runs in eight innings at an average of 32.86 and a strike rate of 175.57, including one hundred and a half-century.
Having been released by RCB, Jacks entered into the auction ring with a base price INR 2 Crore. Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings were involved in a bidding war, but it was the five-time champions who succeeded in securing the services of the English cricketer for INR 5.25 Crore.
