Cricket News
RCB Blunder? 3 Players They Shouldn’t Have Released for IPL 2024 Auction
Royal Challengers Bangalore has played three IPL finals and five playoff matches but are yet to win the title.
Three-time IPL finalists, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have played three finals (2009, 2011, and 2016) and five playoff matches (2010, 2015, 2020, 2021, and 2022). Despite this, they have yet to win a single IPL title. After all, there are a lot of reasons for this debacle. One of them could be inconsistent team selection across two seasons and many more. Meanwhile, in this listicle, we will have a look at three players who shouldn’t have been released by the team.
Three players who shouldn’t have been released by RCB for IPL 2024 player auction
1. Shahbaz Ahmed
The left-hander all-rounder, who has also played a few white-ball games for India, has been traded by an inexperienced all-rounder, Mayank Dagar from Sunrisers Hyderabad. The latter has played only three games, making his debut last year. On the other hand, Ahmed has 39 games under his belt, all for the three-time finalists. The team is already suffering from a good middle-order batting option and a player who can bowl too and giving away Ahmed for Dagar seems to be a suicidal deal.
Josh Hazlewood (Image Credit: Twitter/IPL)
2. Josh Hazlewood
The right-arm pacer became part of the team during the 2022 mega auction. Previously, he was part of the Chennai Super Kings that finished seventh (2020) and won the title the very next season. However, during the 2023 season, due to an Achilles heel injury, Hazlewood remained out of the tournament for some time. Meanwhile, with the Australia bowlers showing interest in the 17th season due to T20 World Cup 2024, he should have been retained. One can wonder how this can prove costly if he gets signed by another team and does well.
David Willey (Source: Twitter)
3. David Willey
In the 2022 season, the former England player made his comeback after playing his first season back in 2018 for the eventual winners, Chennai Super Kings. Meanwhile, he has been released although he didn’t get many games in the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Notably, fitness issues don’t impact him, and is always available. Now, with him taking retirement from international cricket, he can give his full commitment to the franchise cricket
