Andy Flower, the head coach of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), carved his name into the annals of franchise cricket after leading Rajat Patidar and his team to the coveted Indian Premier League (IPL) trophy on Tuesday, June 3. After an 18-year wait, RCB won the IPL for the first time.
After playing an important role in the victory, Flower explained why the management worked so hard to get Venkatesh Iyer’s services at the IPL 2025 mega auction. The former Zimbabwe captain stated that the Madhya Pradesh all-rounder is highly regarded by the RCB camp, and that they desired to have a left-handed Indian batsman in the top-order. RCB were going to spend INR 23.50 crore on Iyer, but Kolkata Knight Riders eventually returned him with a winning price of INR 23.75 crore.
However, Venkatesh Iyer had a disappointing season, scoring only 142 runs from 11 matches with an average of 20.29.
He only managed a half-century in the campaign. Flower believes the 31-year-old would have flourished if he had played for RCB in the IPL 2025.
“We genuinely ranked Venky (highly), which is why we worked so hard for him. It was because we valued having a strong Indian presence on our team. We wanted some intriguing young cricketers and a left-handed batsman in the top order. We did not get him. I’d like to think that if he had played for us, he would have had a fantastic season,” Flower stated following RCB’s title victory in Ahmedabad.
Having failed to rope in Venkatesh, RCB switched to plan B and brought back Devdutt Padikkal in their lineup for a base price of INR 2 crore after he went unsold in the first round. The Karnataka batter had a decent outing at No. 3, scoring 247 runs from 10 matches at an average of 27.44 and a strike rate of 150.61 before a hamstring injury ruled him out of the latter half of the tournament.
