RCB Bold Diaries: Andy Flower and Mo Bobat explain the dynamics of retention and auction

With the retentions of each IPL team announced, now it is time for all of them to plan accordingly for the upcoming IPL mega-auction. Talking about the auction in detail and the kind of strategy that the Royal Challengers might have going forward, head coach, Andy Flower and the Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat opened up on what the fans can expect to follow.

Talking in the latest episode of RCB Bold Diaries, Andy Flower said, “The type of cricket, we want to play will drive the recruitment process actually because we will have specific roles which we want to fill and those roles will carry particular skills that are important to excelling at T20 cricket of an international standard which is what the IPL is.”

Adding further, Andy said, “If you cast your minds to the second half of last season, you will have seen a very attacking brand of cricket, very aggressive bowling up front with bowlers obviously wanting and hunting wickets.”

Mo Bobat stated, “When you get close to the auction, you start thinking a little bit more there around. Some of the auction dynamics that play out, knowing the set orders and where the players might come up, has a big impact on how you plan and what sort of strategy you have. Setting some cost parameters, to what you might want to spend on, different roles and different players is a really exciting part of it as well.”

Bobat also said, “Then you are trying to prepare for as many eventualities as possible. There’s no absolute certainty that you can take into an auction but there is a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and a Plan D. You want to make sure that you are capable of reacting in the moment, being flexible and making the decision that you want that brings it to life.”

He concluded by stating, “We are hugely interested in what our fans think and no doubt they will be vocal over the next few weeks. We hope they understand our retention decisions because we have the responsibility to make those decisions and we understand that not everybody will be aligned with everything we think but hopefully they can appreciate where we are coming from and what we’re trying to do.”