It was a big day for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Jeddah as at the end of the first day of IPL 2025 auction, RCB had quite a few big names in the net. RCB brought in a decent blend of big names and youngsters as they opened the signings with Englishman Liam Livingstone (INR 8 Cr) the first player bought. Livingstone was followed by the wicket-keeper pair of Phil Salt (INR 11.5 Cr), Jitesh Sharma (INR 11 Cr), Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood (INR 12.5 Cr) and two young Indian bowlers in seamer Rasikh Dar (INR 6 Cr) and leg-spinner Suyash Sharma (INR 2.6 Cr).

In a video posted on RCB’s official YouTube channel, Director of Cricket Mo Bobat summarized the opening day and said, “Yeah, interesting day. Lots of money spent early which was interesting to watch. They key things with things like these are I think you have got a real strategy of what you want to get. You got to stay calm when a few of the egos are flying around and people are trying to buy, buy players with extortionate amount of money.”

He continued, “At the end of the day, we’re pretty happy with what we’ve got, We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we want to play, we really want to have a very powerful batting line-up. To have secured the likes of Phil Salt, we saw how special he was last year.”

Bobat further added, “Liam Livingstone through the middle which we wanted to reinforce and strengthen. Really happy with those and to get Jitesh Sharma as well, really happy with that. High quality Indian player, real power down the order, someone who might be able to replicate DK’s finishing and from a bowling perspective, obviously great to get Hazlewood back.”

Continuing further, Bobat said, “High-quality player, Hazlewood is, extreme skills when it comes to the new ball and also can ball through the different phases, so really happy to have him. Also to secure Suyash Sharma, another really good pick. Clearly we wanted Yuzi, people would have seen we wanted Yuzi.”

Bobat concluded by stating, “We bidded to a decent point trying to get him but that price went pretty high and we were worried about compromising the rest of our strategy. Unfortunately we bailed out, we couldn’t deliver Yuzi back to the fans but we’re really happy with what we’ve seen in Suyash Sharma. He is a high-quality leg-spinner, bowls very aggressively and quickly and we think that can add value.”