Former Indian Cricketer Believes RCB Were Lucky to Not Get World Cup Winning Captain Pat Cummins in IPL 2024 Auctions

Former Indian cricketer and batter for the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2008, Aakash Chopra had commented on the Royal Challengers Bangalore going after Pat Cummins during the recently concluded IPL 2024 auctions in Dubai.

Chopra talked about this on his YouTube channel where he believes that RCB had gotten lucky by not winning the bid for Cummins. He added, “They had totally made up their mind that they wanted Pat Cummins at any cost and they kept going after him, kept lifting the paddle. It went till 20 crores and I folded my hands and said – ‘think a little’. If you had got Pat Cummins for 20 crores and you had 23.25 crores, would Pat Cummins have bowled from both ends?”

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RCB had a total of six available slots ahead of the auction of which three were for the overseas players and had a total purse amount of 23.25 crores coming into the auctions. They had released notable names like Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel and others to free up the funds.

When the Australian skipper’s name came up during the auctions, it was the defending champions, Chennai Super Kings who started off the bidding war along with the Mumbai Indians. As MI pulled out, RCB had joined in to increase the bid all the way up to 10 crores, the first player to do so in the 2024 auctions, but there was no stopping the two sides.

CSK also pulled out but SRH stepped in and went all-out to get Cummins for a massive price of 20.50 crores, the most expensive player in IPL history at the time which was soon broken by his fellow compatriot, Mitchell Starc.

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Chopra also was not keen on the idea of Cummins playing for RCB, he added, “If they had bought Pat Cummins, if SRH had pulled out at that stage, and they would have got him for 20 crores, their team would have become extremely weak. When you released so many players and if you had picked Pat Cummins on a small Chinnaswamy ground with a flat pitch, you would have been hit a lot.”

The Royal Challengers Bangalore eventually went for the West Indies pacer, Alzarri Joseph who was bought for 11.5 crores and will be expected to partner Mohammed Siraj in the bowling attack for the side.