The core group is good, but we do need a little bit of tweaking: Mike Hesson

After the thirteenth edition of the Dream11 Indian Premier League ended, the franchises will look forward to hearing from the Board of Control for Cricket in India about the 2021 season. The Royal Challengers Bangalore think-tank led by Mike Hesson will review areas that need to be strengthened for the following year.

Speaking at a virtual press conference, the RCB director of cricket operations told news agency ANI how the youngsters played crucial roles in the team’s balance among other things.

Here are the excerpts from the virtual press conference:

"We have already had initial discussions, we will let the dust settle first, we will gather a lot of ideas firstly, we also need to find facts whether there is a small auction or big auction next year, the core group is good but we do need a little bit of tweaking, the middle order cannot be fixed just by overseas players. It is always a balancing act in terms of how we do it, that is why the development of Padikkal and Washington Sundar is so important for us, regardless of it being a big or small auction.”

On the young Indian players becoming a part of the core team:

"I think the performance of young Indian players is the biggest promising sign for us moving forward, the key to any successful franchise in the IPL are your Indian players. The fact that we have been able to provide a consistent opportunity to the likes of Padikkal, Saini, Sundar, Siraj just to name a few, they have been exceptional and they are growing their game. They are going to give us the backbone of this team going forward, we need a core group of Indians and we have started to develop a bigger core, that's promising."

Evaluating the season in two halves:

"This was pretty much a season of two halves, the strike rate of our middle order in the first eight matches, we were second best in the competition. It was not an issue for the entirety of the tournament. It manifested itself in our last few matches, we were not able to adapt quickly, we obviously batted first in our last five matches and it provided a different challenge to us, we provided a number of opportunities to different players in that position and it is fair to say that we did not get the right balance especially towards the back end. It is something we need to keep looking at. It was not an issue for the entire tournament, it just manifested itself through the latter half."

The Kiwi boss on his first year at RCB:

"The one thing that Simon and I have managed to achieve this year is to understand the players and have first-hand knowledge of them. We have gotten to know them intimately, we have an idea of the type of players we would like to have on our side, we have gathered a lot of good information. We know we have some areas where we would need a little bit of tweaking, but the actual base of our side is very good. We surely need to add some finishing touches."

"I really enjoyed working with this group, it was a new supporting group as well, the fact that we have been together helped us in building those relationships and to understand our roles. We have worked really hard, we know the players go through wins and losses, we are also trying to be nice and level, the players need to know that they can rely on us, that is one thing we have worked on as support staff to get that level of consistency,” Mike Hesson added.

[With ANI inputs]