RCB Bold Diaries: Mike Hesson and Sanjay Bangar address RCB’s huddle in the first practice session ahead of IPL 2023

Chinnaswamy played host to RCB’s first practice session as the team gears up to host an IPL match in the city after a long wait. While some players were seen tonking the ball in the nets, a few others fine-tuned their fielding skills during the team’s maiden practice session ahead of IPL 2023. 

RCB’s Director of Cricket Operations, Mike Hesson, had a nice little perspective on the RCB squad coming together and had an important message for the cricketers, old and new, alike. Apart from Hesson, Sanjay Bangar, RCB’s head coach, also shared some crucial advice for all the players out there.

In the latest episode of the RCB Bold Diaries, Hesson addressed the team during the huddle and said, “Welcome to RCB. It’s fantastic to have you back. Also, those that weren’t from last year, the players, flickers, net bowlers, really great to have you here. We will get to know you in the coming days. The one thing that we religiously do at RCB is that we rely on you.”

Hesson continued, “We rely on you to ensure that you are self-sufficient in terms of your preparation and then once we’re in the net situation, we bring that intensity. But yeah, welcome, as today is the first day of the meeting in terms of gradually making up for the 10-days’ time, so today is not a matter of going hard, really hard, today is a matter of starting to build that process for 10 days.”

Bangar said, “We’ve been following your progress throughout the year and it is very heartening to see that the guys have smashed hundreds in the various leagues or somebody’s picked up a 10-wicket haul or somebody scored a double-hundred, maybe 400 runs, somebody has fulfilled your long-cherished dream of playing for the country in the World Cup event, someone like DK (Dinesh Karthik).”

He further added, “Dinesh wanted to somehow make it to the team. Harshal (Patel) was a part of the World Cup squad. So all in all, what I feel is that the kind of energy we bring in here and especially on the first day of our new beginning, for some of you, the experience of stepping onto that team bus would have been fantastic for the first time. I could have sensed what you have been growing through. Avinash, Himanshu, Rajan, guys take that step up from domestic cricket, for you to take that step up from hinterland, domestic tournaments right into the IPL, dream big, put in the best efforts, and let things unfold in front of you. It will be gradually growing into the first session but we will get the workload going from hereon so that we are best prepared when the game comes on the 2nd.”