Legendary Indian cricket team batter Kris Srikkanth blasted Royal Challengers Bengaluru for their early performance in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 auction. RCB went for a number of players but ended up buying just all-rounder Liam Livingstone for Rs 8.5 Crore. There was a lot of speculation regarding RCB going big for KL Rahul. However, he ended up joining Delhi Capitals for Rs 14 crore. Srikkanth was not happy with how RCB operated in the first part of the auction and he went on to call their strategy “naive” and “baffling”. “Rcb needed one really good keeper batter and it would have been an ideal match to bring back Rahul into the fold that to at a steal of a price ! The strategy they have currently is baffling and quite naive to be frank!” Srikkanth wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Rcb needed one really good keeper batter and it would have been an ideal match to bring back Rahul into the fold that to at a steal of a price ! The strategy they have currently is baffling and quite naive to be frank! #IPLAuction2025

— Kris Srikkanth (@KrisSrikkanth) November 24, 2024

“As usual rcb has missed a trick in the auctions by not going hard for @klrahul ! What a steal for DC though,” the former India cricketer further added on social media.

Generational talent Rishabh Pant pipped Shreyas Iyer to become the costliest buy in IPL’s history with a Rs 27 crore winning bid from Lucknow Super Giants as teams expectedly went the extra mile for marquee Indian players at the mega auction.

Iyer, who captained the Kolkata Knight Riders to the title earlier this year, and Delhi Capitals’ icon Pant, reaped the benefits of making themselves available at the auction following differences with their respective teams.

Iyer was the first one to surpass Mitchell Starc as the IPL’s most expensive buy with cash-heavy Punjab Kings shelling out Rs 26.75 crore for their potential captain before Pant overtook the fellow Indian by attracting Rs 25 lakh more from LSG.

Former DC teammates Iyer and Pant have had to deal with adversity in the past couple of years but have shown remarkable resilience and courage to bounce back.

Pant beat all odds to make a successful comeback after a life-threatening car accident in 2022 while Iyer put behind his exclusion from the BCCI central contracts list to lead KKR to their third IPL trophy earlier this year.

Delhi Capitals expectedly enabled the Right To Match to buy back Pant at Rs 20.75 crore but LSG raised the bid to Rs 27 crore and the former decided against matching that amount.

Both Iyer and Pant are expected to lead their new teams in IPL 2025, which will begin March 14.

(With PTI inputs)

Legendary Indian cricket team batter Kris Srikkanth was extremely critical of Babar Azam and even asked him to consider leaving T20 cricket. The Pakistan cricket team captain has enjoyed an extremely poor run of form in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2024 and his slow approach has also put him under a lot of criticism from experts and fans. Following Pakistan’s T20 World Cup 2024 exit, Srikkanth said that Babar’s ‘tuk-tuking’ does not have a place in T20 cricket and he should stop playing the shortest format of the sport. “I don’t think Babar should play T20 cricket. I mean you can’t do this tuk-tuking all the time in T20 cricket. They say Babar scored 4,000 runs like Virat or Rohit, but his strike rate is only 112-115 what are you talking about?,” said Srikkanth on Star Sports.

Babar Azam’s prospects of becoming Test captain again have seemingly taken a major hit after the USA ended Pakistan’s chances of claiming a spot in the Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup.

Sources told Geo News that Shan Masood will retain the Test captaincy for their two-match red-ball series against Bangladesh in August. It was also reported that following the T20 World Cup fiasco, the board is disappointed in Babar’s ability to lead.

The Bangladesh series will be the first stint for former Australian pacer Jason Gillespie as Pakistan’s red-ball head coach.

Masood was appointed Pakistan’s Test captain after Babar decided to leave captaincy in all formats in the aftermath of last year’s ODI World Cup. Shaheen was chosen to succeed Babar as the T20I skipper.

His brief run as the Pakistan skipper ended in April this year. Shaheen was removed from the T20I captaincy after leading the team in just one series against New Zealand. The Blackcaps outplayed Pakistan in all facets of the game and scripted a 4-1 T20I series defeat for the Shaheen-led team.

Before the T20 World Cup started, Babar was restored as the white-ball skipper. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), in a statement, described the change as a “strategic move.”

But PCB’s move didn’t pan out as they would have hoped. Gary Kirsten was brought in as the white-ball head coach ahead of the tournament to bolster their chances. However, Pakistan crashed out of the tournament in the group stage. They suffered consecutive defeats in their opening games against the USA and arch-rival India.

(With ANI inputs)

Legendary Indian cricket team batter Kris Srikkanth had a blunt advice for Royal Challengers Bengaluru after the Faf Du Plessis-led side lost to Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2024 Eliminator on Thursday. RCB were outplayed completely by RR who claimed a four-wicket victory. It was the end of an impressive campaign which saw RCB bounce back from a horrible start with six victories on the trot including a sensational win over Chennai Super Kings in their final league game. Srikkanth said that RCB celebrated way too much after beating CSK and advised them to stay quiet when they are enjoying success.

“In life when you are doing well keep your mouth shut and keep going, when you make noise out of something you are doing you cannot do that work,” said Srikkanth on his YouTube channel.

“They were posting unnecessary videos and showing off too much (after the win against CSK). That’s why came and destroyed them, that’s why in cricket you need to shut your mouth and play.”

“If you played well, congrats, if you played poorly then take the criticism but you should never open your mouth and show aggression. They are going on congratulating themselves for qualifying for the playoffs and for the great comeback, CSK and MI have done this so many more times. CSK and Mumbai have both come from nowhere and won titles. These guys won six matches and as soon as they qualified they got knocked out,” Srikkanth added.

After the match, RCB captain Faf Du Plessis opened up on the defeat.

“With the dew coming, we felt we were short with the bat. Did think we were 20 runs shy of what was a good score. Credit to the boys – they fought really well. That’s all you can ask for. If you look at naturally assessing the pitch and conditions, you would say it’s a 180 pitch because it was swinging upfront and was quite slow. But what we’ve found out this season, with the impact player, the par score isn’t enough any more. Also with the dew coming in. Extremely proud. Lot of teams – their wheels would’ve fallen off after 1 from 9. To come back like that, six games in a row, takes a lot of heart and character. We weren’t special tonight in terms of pushing that extra 20 runs with the bat,” he said.