IPL 2021: Gautam Gambhir slams Royal Challengers Bangalore for releasing 10 players

IPL 2021: Gautam Gambhir slams Royal Challengers Bangalore for releasing 10 players
Royal Challengers Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) announced their list of players retained yesterday for the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2021 and while it did contain expected names, the huge number of players released raised eyebrows. The franchise released the highest amount of players with as many as 10 being let go. The 10 included ace players like Chris Morris, Moeen Ali, Isuru Udana, Aaron Finch, Shivam Dube and Umesh Yadav.

The release of these players did clear up a lot of funds going into the auction but the decision hasn’t gone down well with some section of fans and former cricketers who have criticized the move saying that a partial revamp when there is just one more season for a mega-auction isn’t a good idea. The common occurrence of a player released from RCB performing well in subsequent IPL editions has been referenced as well.

‘It will only bring insecurity’ – Gautam Gambhir

Gautam Gambhir

Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir spoke on the Star Sports show Cricket Connected today about RCB’s decisions with regard to retentions and slammed the same saying that releasing a huge amount of players would only lead to insecutiy among the rest of the players.

“The biggest problem with RCB is the plethora of changes they make every year, it will only bring insecurity to even the players who are a part of the squad. It’s not just about releasing 10 players, even the retained ones would be thinking that if they have one more bad season, they will be ousted too. This is a problem for coaches and mentors – just to save their positions, they cannot blame the players,” Gambhir said.

He then criticized the release of South African all-rounder Chris Morris and said, “Chris Morris had one bad season, you had shown so much of trust on him, and if you see, he did not have that bad a season. No doubt, he was unfit in the beginning of the season, but when he played, he bowled really well. And they could have also stuck with Umesh Yadav for one more season given the dearth of pacers who are available.”

The IPL auction will take place in mid-February and it remains to be seen what strategies the RCB franchise goes for.

Also Read: IPL 2021: Aakash Chopra makes bold prediction ahead of auction, backs Mitchell Starc to become most expensive buy of all time