The Green is absolutely suitable for us - says RCB Cricket Director Mo Bobat

 

The Green is absolutely suitable for us - says RCB Cricket Director Mo Bobat. According to him, Cameroon Green could be an explosive package for Royal Challengers Bangalore, especially at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Bobat stated on RCB Bold Diaries, "He is absolutely suitable in the middle-order power-hitting role for us. He is a high-quality, skilled, and powerful batter. He excels in both pace and spin games. With international experience in all formats, I believe he will enjoy batting at Chinnaswamy. Watching him in action will be truly exciting."

"He is also an excellent bowler, delivering with pace and bounce, qualities we were specifically looking for in our home conditions. Let's not forget how exceptional he is as a fielder. Recently, he has made some stunning catches in the gully, truly impactful."

Before the upcoming mini-auction, Australian all-rounder Cameron Green was traded to RCB from Mumbai Indians. At the time of the announcement, Green was still part of Mumbai's retained players. Bobat explained the last-minute deal saying, "If I were to sum up our retention and release decisions tomorrow morning, we were clear on our priorities and communicated it to all our players."

"We were very clear about what it meant for our auction strategy. So, it felt like we were going to have a pretty calm afternoon. Even if you look at our retention and the decisions we made, we got a very strong core, and we wanted to strengthen the middle order a bit by adding a bit of power. We got clarity on the potential availability of Cameron, which we had to take seriously."

After talking to people at MI and a small group discussion, they thought it would be better to discuss the deal with professionals and opposition, which they did for a short while.

"Inevitably, we were trying to consider if we take the risk of acquiring Cameron Green, who could have been available before the deadline... Hopefully, he will be part of the auction as a released player, but anyone else could have bid for him."

"We have chosen him, which was clear. However, there is no guarantee in the auction that you will get him because you can be outbid easily. Our new head coach Andy Flower was also excited about having Green in the team. Flower said, 'Our focus was really around the middle order, and if we lose some top players in the middle order, which is inevitable, we can improve in that middle order.'"

"So, this is one area, and the other area is creating the right balance with foreign players, and how we allocate our resources in that area. Certainly, even in these days of impact players, all-rounders are still important. So, we discussed how we can include all-rounders in our eleven and what options and flexibility we get when we do that. We spent quite a bit of time debating and it became an attractive mini-project."

In the all-cash deal with RCB, Mumbai added 17.50 crore to their purse, facilitating the return of Hardik Pandya from Gujarat Titans.

As RCB heads into the auction, they now have a total of 23.35 crores in their kitty. Released players include: Vanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Josh Hazlewood, Finn Allen, Michael Bracewell, David Willey, Venkatesh Iyer, Sonu Yadav, Avinash Singh, Siddharth Kaul, Kedar Jadhav.

Players traded out: Shahbaz Ahmed.

Players traded in: Mayank Dagar, Cameron Green.

Retained players: Faf du Plessis, Rajat Patidar, Virat Kohli, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Akash Deep, Mohammad Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Vishak Vijaykumar.