The Royal Challengers Bangalore on Thursday went all out to purchase Glenn Maxwell at the IPL auction. The franchise paid Rs 14.25 crore for the Australia all-rounder.
KKR made the opening bid for Maxwell but it eventually became a two-way bidding war between Chennai Super Kings and RCB before the Virat Kohli-led team won him with a bid which came to USD 1.96 million.
Punjab Kings, who had paid Rs 10.75 crore for Maxwell in the previous auction, had released the 32-year-old following the 2020 edition in which he made 108 runs in 13 games at 15.42.
In 82 IPL games, Maxwell has made 1505 runs at a modest average of 22.13.
RCB had raised a few eyebrows when they announced their list of retained and released players. Ahead of the IPL 2021 auction, the Bangalore side released 10 players.
These were – Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Moeen Ali, Parthiv Patel (Retired), Pawan Negi, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav, Aaron Finch, Chris Morris, Dale Steyn, Isuru Udana.
The franchise had Rs 35.7 crore left in their purse after letting go of all these players.
Royal Challengers Bangalore full squad for IPL 2021
Retained players: Virat Kohli (captain), Yuzvendra Chahal, AB de Villiers, Mohammed Siraj, Pawan Negi, Devdutt Padikkal, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Joshua Philippe, Kane Richardson, Pavan Deshpande, Shahbaz Ahamad.
New additions: Glenn Maxwell, Kyle Jamieson, Dan Christian, Sachin Baby, Rajat Patidar, Mohammed Azharuddeen, KS Bharat and Suyash Prabhudesai.