Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) star Mohammad Kaif slammed Virat Kohli's franchise for their picks in the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction 2025 which was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Bengaluru-based franchise was in the limelight as they didn't pick their former star players and failed to pick suitable players in their squad.RCB only retained 3 players Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, and Yash Dayal they had 3 RTM cards left to use in the auction. But RCB only used 1 RTM card on Swapnil Singh.
Kaif shared his views on RCB and their decision to let Will Jacks go to Mumbai Indian for 5.25 cr. Mumbai got Will Jacks after a bidding fight with Punjab in the Auction. After RCB refused to use RTM on him, Aakash Ambani went to shake hands after picking W.Jacks with the RCB CEO.
"Jacks saved their honour last year. RCB came in the top four because of him. I remember two matches. He helped RCB beat SRH (SunRisers Hyderabad) in Hyderabad with his bowling and scored a hundred against GT (Gujarat Titans) in Ahmedabad off 40 balls. So Will Jacks won them two matches on his own and they didn't take him," he said.
"RCB said they don't want good players. They let (Rishabh) Pant and KL (Rahul) go, and he (Jacks) played well for them. It's not easy for any batter to score a hundred. The RCB fans will be extremely disappointed. We have seen from yesterday (Day 1) that RCB's auction planning was bad, and today (Day 2) they went from bad to worse. I believe not taking Jacks is a massive miss," Kaif added.
Will Jacks was in the form of his life during the last edition of the tournament. He played eight IPL matches scoring 230 runs with 1 hundred and 1 fifty. He had a very impressive strike rate of over 170+ in the 2024 IPL edition. He played some important innings for RCB in the 2nd half of the IPL when they needed it the most.
RCB IPL 2025 Squad: Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Yash Dayal, Liam Livingstone (Rs. 8.75 crore), Phil Salt (Rs. 11.50 crore), Jitesh Sharma (Rs. 11 crore), Josh Hazlewood (Rs. 12.50 crore), Rasikh Dar (Rs. 6 crore), Suyash Sharma (Rs. 2.60 crore), Krunal Pandya (Rs. 5.75 crore), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Rs. 10.75 crore), Swapnil Singh (Rs. 50 lakh), Tim David (Rs. 3 crore), Romario Shepherd (Rs. 1.50 crore), Nuwan Thushara (Rs. 1.60 crore), Manoj Bhandage (Rs. 30 lakh), Jacob Bethell (Rs. 2.60 crore), Devdutt Padikkal (Rs. 2 crore), Swastik Chhikara (Rs. 30 lakh), Lungi Ngidi (Rs. 1 crore), Abhinandan Singh (Rs. 30 lakh), Mohit Rathee (Rs. 30 lakh).
