On Yuzvendra Chahal’s Shock RCB Release, Ex-Director Mike Hesson’s Big Revelation

Former Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) Director of Cricket, Mike Hesson, has revealed the reason behind the franchise’s decision to release Yuzvendra Chahal ahead of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. Ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction, RCB retained three players — Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, and Mohammad Siraj. RCB’s decision to release Chahal came as a big shock and the leg-spinner was eventually bought by Rajasthan Royals during the auctions. Hesson, who was with RCB at that time, recalled that he personally called Chahal to explain the reason behind his ouster from the franchise.

However, Hesson revealed that Chahal was “upset” and “disinterested” in the conversation.

“Yuzi was communicated with a huge amount. And I know that because I was the guy at the other end of the phone. I remember ringing Yuzi afterwards and he was upset. It was very difficult to try and explain the auction dynamics to him at that time. He was visibly disinterested, and I don’t blame him. He was an RCBian and he was frustrated. But I can assure everyone that he is well-aware of the issues we were confronted with,” Hesson told Cricket.com.

Since it was a mega auction, Chahal did not find a place in the marquee players list. His name popped up after 64 players went under the hammer.

Hesson revealed that they wanted to buy back Chahal and Harshal Patel at the auction, but with the auction being a mega one, things got a bit complicated.

While RCB did manage to buy back Harshal, Chahal eventually went to RR. As his replacement, RCB did manage to get their hands on Sri Lanka all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranaga.

“I spoke to Yuzi (Yuzvendra Chahal) obviously when we did the initial retention and we only retained three players because we felt we wanted to try and buy back both Harshal Patel and Yuzi at the auction. Probably the thing that I’m really frustrated about even now is as you said Yuzi is probably one of the top-five players of all time for RCB but he was also one of the best ever in the IPL and the fact that he couldn’t make the top two marquee lists at that time was ridiculous, the fact that he came in as number 65 on the auction list means that it was really difficult for us to guarantee we were going to get him,” the former New Zealand coach added.

Hesson also explained why RCB went all in for Hasaranga, labelling the latter as a “three-dimensional” player.

“For Chahal, we knew there were five other teams that had more money than us and if we let go of all the bowlers before that and then we got to bidding for Yuzi and everyone knew we were going for Yuzi and we didn’t get him, we could have got bullied by five other teams and then been left with no leg spinner. So it was one that we’d spent hours and hours debating and trying to manipulate the mock auctions of how we could potentially leave ourselves with Yuzi. We felt we needed to have a decent dip at Wanindu Hasaranga obviously the fact he was, a three-dimensional player, batting for Sri Lanka had been really good at that time, was well, good player of spin and was performing incredibly well on the international stage. So we felt that if we weren’t going to get Yuzi, Hasaranga was a really nice option for us,” Hesson further explained.