It was a big decision for us to make - RCB think-tank on opting to let go of Mohammed Siraj

Once RCB’s retention list featuring Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar and Yash Dayal came out, one of the biggest questions that set social media abuzz was the absence of seamer Mohammed Siraj as one of the choices.

Siraj has been an integral part of RCB’s pace battery since linking up with the franchise at the 2018 IPL Auction for a sum of INR 2.2 Crore, and since then has picked up 83 wickets from 87 matches for the team.

Now an India international across formats, Siraj’s non-retention did come as a surprise to quite a few fans, but in an episode of RCB Bold Diaries, head coach Andy Flower and Director of Cricket Mo Bobat added weight to the topic and insights into why the right-arm seamer was not retained.

Flower said, “I'm sure one of the surprises around our retentions will be the fact that we haven't retained Mohamed Siraj. Mohamed Siraj is a successful international cricketer of some standing and has also been with RCB for the last eight years. We want to look for some particular skills in the fast bowling department. We've already identified and retained one of those particular skills that we want, which is the left arm angle and T20 skills that Yash Dayal brings us.”

Notably, left-arm seamer Yash Dayal, who heavily impressed with his variations in IPL 2024 was retained by RCB apart from Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar.

Bobat too shared his views on Siraj and said, “Probably the discussion that took up the most time for us actually was our decision to whether we retain or release Mohamed Siraj. When he's got his tail up, he's got that real fire that you can see that becomes infectious for the rest of the team. He bounces quite strongly off Virat and those two as a combination have been quite powerful. It was a big decision for us to make to not retain Siraj because of all of those skills and attributes.”

Bobat also shined some light on the think-tank’s approach to complementing Dayal, particularly in context of home matches.

“We've come to think that given some of the unique elements of performing at the Chinnaswamy, we feel quite strongly that we need a lot of variety in our attack. We want to give ourselves as many options as possible going into the auction to look at how we complement that with Yash and with our other overseas picks so that we can be as effective with the ball as possible.”

Flower added a few more inputs on the topic as he quipped, “We will monitor and target certain players in the auction that we think will bring us the particular skills that we require, particularly at Chinnaswamy with seven home games. That's part of the thinking behind that non-retention.”