Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) are one of those very few teams in the IPL which, despite having played all the 16 seasons of the tournament, have never won an IPL title in their history. But, for the last three years, one thing that RCB were doing well was they were consistently making it to the playoffs.
This season, however, RCB failed to make it to the playoffs and missed the spot by a small margin of 2 points, as they lost their last league game against Gujarat Titans last night at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Royal Challengers Bangalore now seem to be at a stage where they need a bit of a transition and they might have to let go of some of their big names next year to build a new core group.
Here are the 3 players Royal Challengers Bangalore might release before next IPL –
Harshal Patel
Harshal Patel had become such an indispensable part of the RCB set-up after his performances in the 2021 season that RCB actually retained him and didn’t let him go into the mega auction, as his value in the mega auction was anticipated to be going to be very high.
It was a right decision by the RCB management at that point of time, but Harshal couldn’t justify the backing that he got and now it seems RCB can’t afford to keep him in the squad at the price they had retained him.
Dinesh Karthik
Dinesh Karthik was another player who saw great re-emergence in the RCB set-up as his performances as a finisher in the last season of the IPL helped him earn a recall in the Indian national T20I team for the T20 World Cup in Australia.
But, this season, because of the lack of cricket under his belt, Karthik seemed to struggle a lot both with bat and gloves. If Karthik doesn’t retire himself, there is a high possibility RCB might release him before the next mini auction.
Wanindu Hasaranga
Wanindu Hasaranga is also occupying a big chunk of RCB’s salary budget and although he has given a few match winning performances here and there, he hasn’t really done enough to completely justify his price tag.
Hasaranga was even dropped from RCB’s playing XI towards the end of this IPL and RCB went with the kiwi batting allrounder Michael Bracewell who bowls a bit of part time off spin. One shouldn’t be surprised if RCB doesn’t retain Hasaranga’s services next year.
