Former India cricketer, Gautam Gambhir has lashed out at the Royal Challengers Bangalore for releasing a plethora of players ahead of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League. The Bangalore-based franchise has retained 12 members while releasing 10 players.
During a discussion on the Star Sports’ Cricket Connected show, Gambhir was asked if it was a fair call to release Chris Morris. In reply, the former KKR skipper said that RCB should have retained the 33-year-old South African stalwart.
Taking a sarcastic dig at Virat Kohli-led side, Gambhir said that the Director of Cricket Operations, Mike Hesson, and RCB head coach, Simon Katich, not being released was the best thing for the franchise.
“The biggest positive for RCB is that they have retained Mike Hesson and Simon Katich because I even had a doubt that they might release them as well.
“It wasn’t correct because you will not have an all-rounder like Chris Morris available in the market. How many like him do you have – Ben Stokes, Hardik Pandya, and the franchises will never release these players. So, they could have stayed with him for one more year,” he said.
RCB Retained Players: Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Gurkeerat Singh, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Joshua Philippe, Pavan Deshpande, Shahbaz Ahamad, Adam Zampa
RCB Released Players: Umesh Yadav, Chris Morris, Moeen Ali, Aaron Finch, Isuru Udana, Dale Steyn, Gurkeerat Mann, Shivam Dube, Pawan Negi, Parthiv Patel