Sanjay Bangar explains the rationale behind RCB's overseas releases

Talking on RCB Bold Diaries, RCB Head Coach Sanjay Bangar clarified the thoughts in the locker room before the Challengers went into the retention process ahead of the upcoming auction for IPL 2023.

Amongst the two overseas players released by RCB was ace Australian quick, Jason Behrendorff while the other was the Caribbean all-rounder, Sherfane Rutherford. Rutherford played an important role in a couple of games in the 2022 season while Behrendorff didn’t get any game time.

Talking about the overseas players, Bangar said, “Behrendorff was traded to the Mumbai Indians primarily because Hazlewood was going to be available for the bulk of the season. Jason was also extremely keen to be a part of the playing XI and the opportunities at RCB were always going to be limited. So that was the thought process behind Jason Behrendorff’s release.”

He then shifted his focus to the Caribbean all-rounder, stating, “As far as Sherfane Rutherford was concerned, he got his opportunities. We were tracking his progress. Obviously, the Maxwell injury and the kind of cover that we would ideally want for Glenn or even for that all-rounder’s role meant that it was going to be hard for us to foresee Sherfane Rutherford playing in the 11.”

Bangar concluded by saying, “That was the entire thought process. We believe in this team, we believe in the players that we have. We are putting a lot of effort into their preparation and I am pretty confident that the results will come our way.”