Here are four auction mistakes that could cost Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) their maiden trophy in IPL 2025.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have been a champion outfit throughout the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Yet, they have been unfortunate to not have won the IPL title even once. The three-time finalists, whose fans go by the motto Ee Sala Cup Namde (This year the cup is ours), will hope that the upcoming season will indeed be theirs. There’s a change in leadership after Faf du Plessis led RCB for three straight seasons. This season, Royal Challengers Bengaluru will be led by Rajat Patidar, who has been with the franchise since 2021.
All 10 franchises spent a whopping amount of money at the mega auction last year and so did RCB, who spent INR 119.25 crore. However, spending an insane amount of money may not always end in positive results because, at the end of the day, it’s the talent of the players in the squad that matters.
We take a look at four auction mistakes that could cost Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2025:
This is one of the major mistakes that could haunt the Royal Challengers if they fail to win the title once again. England’s Will Jacks was one of the standout performers for them in 2024, scoring 230 runs from eight matches at a strike rate of 175.57. This includes a century as well as a half-century.
RCB had three Right-to-Match (RTM) cards having retained just three players Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, and Yash Dayal. One of those RTM cards could have been used to retain Will Jacks. He was later acquired by Mumbai Indians (MI) for INR 5.25 crore at the IPL 2025 auction.
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Ahead of the mega auctions, the cricket pundits speculated that the Bengaluru franchise could bid for KL Rahul. The wicketkeeper-batter had been released by Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and a return to his former team was always on the cards. Indeed, RCB were quite active in the bidding war for Rahul against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) till the INR 10.50 crore mark, but both of them soon backed out before Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Delhi Capitals (DC) came into the picture. DC eventually got the services of Rahul for INR 14 crore.
We all know that Krunal Pandya is a versatile all-rounder, but one thing he lacks is consistency. Take his last two IPL seasons for example. Pandya has taken just 15 wickets from 29 matches across the 2023 and 2024 editions for Lucknow Super Giants while scoring 321 runs. His bowling average last year was an underwhelming 42.50 as he also tends to leak runs often. Only time will tell how the Baroda cricketer will turn up in the upcoming tournament.
While several other franchises splashed a lot of money on big players, Royal Challengers Bengaluru rather took a more cautious approach. To start off with, RCB retained just three players. Not only did they not use RTMs on players like Mohammed Siraj or Will Jacks, but they also failed to try to bid on reputed stars like Rishabh Pant and Yuzvendra Chahal. RCB need an experienced campaigner in the spin bowling department. Chahal could have made a fairytale return to the franchise. But that was not meant to be as Punjab Kings (PBKS) bought him for Rs 18 crore.
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