Mike Hesson opens up on Yuzvendra Chahal’s RCB release

Mike Hesson, former director of cricket operations, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), has revealed the reasons for the release of Yuzvendra Chahal. The 33-year-old wrist spinner was released by RCB following the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) which ended a seven-year stint with the three-time finalists.

After Chahal’s release, Hesson was questioned regarding the team’s communication with the bowler, who ranked among the team’s all-time best five players. He said that he had spoken to Chahal and also RCB have retained only three bowlers for the 2022 season.

“I spoke to Yuzi (Yuzvendra Chahal) obviously when we did the initial retention and we only retained three players because we felt we wanted to try and buy back both Harshal Patel and Yuzi at the auction. Probably the thing that I’m really frustrated about even now is as you said Yuzi is probably one of the top five players of all time for RCB but he was also one of the best ever in the IPL and the fact that he couldn’t make the top two marquee lists at that time was ridiculous, The fact that he came in number 65 on the auction list means that it was really difficult for us to guarantee we were going to get him,” Hesson said during a live interaction Unwind with Cricket.com.

Also read: 3 RCB bowlers to watch out for in IPL 2024

Watch the video:

Whole Chahal Auction explained by Hesson

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— Sai (@akakrcb6) February 19, 2024

In addition, he mentioned that five other teams had attempted to acquire Chahal’s services at the auction. He continued by talking about how RCB acquired top all-arounder Wanindu Hasaranga of Sri Lanka.

“For Chahal, we knew there were five other teams that had more money than us and if we let go of all the bowlers before that and then we got to bidding for Yuzi and everyone knew we were going for Yuzi and we didn’t get him we could have got bullied by five other teams and then been left with no leg spinner.  So it was one that we’d spent hours and hours debating and trying to manipulate the mock auctions of how we could potentially leave ourselves with Yuzi. We felt we needed to have a decent dip at Wanindu Hasaranga obviously the fact he was, a three-dimensional player, batting for Sri Lanka had been really good at that time, was well, good player of spin and was performing incredibly well on the international stage. So we felt that if we weren’t going to get Yuzi, Hasaranga was a really nice option for us,” he added.

Read more: Bowling was a concern and RCB have addressed it this time: Abhinav Mukund

Hesson went on to explain that throughout their conversation after the auction, the leg spinner indicated how disappointed he was with RCB, which he perfectly understood. The 49-year-old added that he was not the only one who made the decisions and that Chahal was also aware of the problems in the management.

“We got Hasaranga which we were delighted with but we knew that obviously, that would have flow-on effects so it was something that we tried really hard and then I remember ringing Yuzi afterwards, he was upset and trying to explain to him the auction dynamics at that time was you know he was not interested and I don’t blame him. He was an RCBian and he was frustrated but I can assure you and him he is well aware of the issues we were confronted with and obviously I was part of that decision-making process but I certainly wasn’t the only one involved in those discussions,” he concluded.