RCB poor with their auction strategy while CSK’s scouting system too strong, admits Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid, who has been involved with the RCB camp previously as captain has admitted that the franchise has been poor with their auction strategy in contrast to its rivals CSK. He went on to reveal that India Cements’ presence in cricket allowed them to build a good scouting system for CSK.
It is no secret that RCB have been largely the disappointing franchise in the last 12 seasons of the IPL. Despite boasting world-famous names such as Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Dale Steyn, Chris Gayle in the past, they have not managed to lift a single silverware in 12 seasons. Former Indian cricketer Dravid, who has captained the franchise in the past revealed that RCB’s poor auction strategy has cost them an IPL in the past despite making it to two IPL finals.
“Bangalore have never balanced their team very well. I think they’ve been very poor with selections and auctions,” said Dravid as quoted by Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde’s 2019 book, ‘Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution.‘
Dravid went on to add that on the other hand, India Cements’ presence in cricket allowed them to build a successful franchise in CSK. RCB’s rivals have won the league three times including winning one against them in the 2011 season at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
“When they got into the IPL, Chennai probably had an advantage over a lot of other franchises because their owners, India Cements, were already in the business of running cricket teams. CSK was just the most high-profile team that they ran. So in a sense they’ve always had people on the ground and their scouting system was probably better right at the start than any other team,” Dravid added.
However, Dravid was stern about RCB’s auction strategy, criticising them for investing on batsmen more than bowlers with the exception of one season. In that season, RCB bought the Australian pacer Mitchell Starc, who turned games on his head for the franchise.
“They had their best year when they had a bowler like Mitchell Starc who was able to close out games for them. But they kept going out and picking gun batsmen,” he concluded.