IPL 2021: Royal Challengers Bangalore rope in Sanjay Bangar as batting consultant

IPL 2021: Royal Challengers Bangalore rope in Sanjay Bangar as batting consultant
Sanjay Bangar (left) and RCB logo (right).

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) appoint India’s former Assistant Coach Sanjay Bangar as their batting consultant. The news came on Wednesday ahead of the IPL scheduled for April-May in India.

Sanjay Bangar has a vast coaching experience under his belt. Besides serving the Indian cricket team for a consecutive period of over five years, he also coached many IPL teams.

Having now been contracted with RCB, Bangar will join the coaching staff comprising Sridharan Sriram (batting and spin bowling coach), and Simon Katich (head coach).

“Delighted to add a Coach of Sanjay Bangar’s experience to our existing coaching team led by Head Coach Simon Katich,” RCB’s Director of Cricket Operations Mike Hesson said in an official release.

Hesson deliberated on the primary role that Bangar would be serving to the team.

“Sanjay Bangar’s role as batting consultant will include working with our existing squad in camps in Bengaluru leading up to our full squad pre-IPL camp.”

“We are very fortunate at RCB to now have Sanjay join Sriram and Simon as batting coaches who can offer superb knowledge and experience to our playing squad throughout the IPL,” concluded Mike.

IPL Auction to be held on February 18th, in Chennai

Mike Hesson and the coaching staff are most likely to be present in the IPL auctions slated to be held in Chennai on February 18th.

The red-brigade performed well and reached IPL 2020 playoffs, but soon were out after losing in the Eliminator against SunRisers Hyderabad.

Here’s RCB’s list of retained and released players.

Retained players: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Devdutt Padikkal, Washington Sundar, Mohammad Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Adam Zampa, Shahbaz Ahmed, Josh Philippe, Kane Richardson, Pawan Deshpande.

Released players: Aaron Finch, Gurkeerat Mann, Chris Morris, Shivam Dube, Dale Steyn, Parthiv Patel, Isuru Udana, Umesh Yadav, and Pawan Negi.

Earlier this month, pacer Dale Steyn had announced that he would not be available for selection for IPL 2021, and as a result, he has also been released.

Also read: IPL 2021: 5 teams that can sign Marnus Labuschagne in the auction