‘It was a big decision’- RCB Director of Cricket on Mohammed Siraj releasing

Because of the nature of the IPL, there will always be a churn. It does come as a shock, though, to lose one of the franchise’s main players who has contributed to the team’s success over the years. This is what happened as soon as the word broke that Mohammed Siraj would be going up for auction.

Given Siraj’s tight bond with previous captain Virat Kohli and his wide variety of bowling abilities, Royal Challengers Bengaluru Director of Cricket Mo Bobat acknowledged that the decision was difficult.

The debate over whether to keep Mohammed Siraj on board or let him go was arguably the one that consumed the most of our attention. When he’s on his game, you can see that he has a genuine fire that spreads to the rest of the team. He rebounds off Virat really well, and the two of them together have been very effective. Bobat said, “With all of those skills and attributes, it was a big decision for us to not retain Siraj,” according to the official RCB website.

Bobat attributed it to the thought tank’s desire to maximise the bowling group in accordance with the requirements of their home stadium, taking into account Yash Dayal as the focal point of their massive auction selections.

Given some of the special aspects of playing in the Chinnaswamy, we’ve come to believe that we need a lot of variation in our attack. In order to be as effective with the ball as possible, we want to offer ourselves as many alternatives as possible going into the auction to see how we can supplement that with Yash and our other international selections,” Bobat said.

Part of the reasoning for that non-retention is as follows: A flower

Andy Flower, the head coach, echoed Bobat’s opinion and gave the justification for Siraj’s dismissal. “We will keep an eye on and target specific players in the auction who we believe will provide us with the specific abilities we need, especially at the Chinnaswamy with seven home games. That’s part of the reasoning for that non-retention,” Flower continued.

Also Read: Who outrivalled Virat Kohli to become most expensive retained player in IPL history

Since 2018, Siraj has been a member of the RCB. The previous two seasons, in which he finished with an aggregate of 34 wickets, were two of his best seasons in terms of wicket total.