A few weeks ago, IPL auction for 2021 was completed and there were some really costly purchases, most notably from Royal Challengers Bangalore. Glenn Maxwell went for more than 14 Cr and Kyle Jamieson, the unknown quantity when it comes to T20 cricket was bought for 15 Cr. These were outrageous sums. Nothing can be done about them now and it remains to be how will these players perform. Will they justify the price tag? Will they be able to help RCB win the IPL 2021 for the very first time? This remains to be seen. In the meantime, let us see what these expensive purchases as well as other RCB recruits have done in various games since then.
Kyle Jamieson, the New Zealand all-rounder
Australia & New Zealand are engaged in a series of T20 games in New Zealand. All the RCB recruits are playing in this series and that includes Maxwell & Jamieson. The performance of the players are not upto expectation. Kyle Jamieson has scored only 40 runs in 4 games and has taken just a single wicket and his averaging 175 and he has gone for 11 runs an over.
This is exceptionally high by any T20 standards. Yes, Jamieson is new to international cricket and he may improve but the point is, has RCB blundered in picking him over others? Could they have waited for a couple of years to assess how Jamieson shapes up in international cricket? Will Jamieson find Indian wickets much more flatter and therefore not conducive to his bowling? We will know the answer in about 2 months. However, Twitter is having complete fun at the expense of Jamieson.
Glenn Maxwell, the overrated Australian batsman
Maxwell too hasn’t set the games on fire. He is someone who has been playing at the international level. He has played all format of the game for Australia. Maxwell is known as someone who will be able to change the game within the space of a few overs. He has played IPL for 10 years and except for one year, never managed to score runs. That is one reason he has been released by a lot of franchises over the years. When the franchises are willing to retain lot of players, why didn’t they retain Maxwell? It is because of non-performance. RCB or more specifically, Kohli seems to have fell into the Maxwell’s web. Kohli and RCB will keep their fingers crossed.
As for other players, Adam Zampa is alright but the same cannot be said about Richardson or Philippe. RCB are at the mercy of these players for 2021.
What is happening around the world?
Surprisingly, the number of series that is going on currently or the ones that went by and ones in the future is certainly on par with the usual. It seems that the cricketing world is back to normal though the bio-secure restrictions still remain. South Africa and Pakistan have just completed a series of tests and limited overs series which South Africa promptly went on to lose. South African cricket really is in bad mess. They do not seem to produce enough talent and they have enormous amount of loss because of lack of cricket. India will do well to support CSA. A few years ago, India and Australia used to play each other every year. Something similar must be arranged with CSA. Graeme Smith is on record that his bonding with Ganguly will help CSA secure more games against India.
Other series
Elsewhere, India and England are involved in a series now. Sri Lanka and England completed a series recently. IPL 2021 will start in about a month. All of these points to the fact the all the boards around the world are co-operating in these testing time with the exception of the Australian board which was somewhat unfortunate. They have cancelled a series with South Africa citing the Covid situation in that country. CA didn’t seem to understand that the players will be under bio-secure and as such, there is little chance of the players being infected. Almost all the boards are going out of their way to accommodate series but unfortunately, CA who themselves were set to lose huge amount of money if India hadn’t toured, refused to travel to South Africa.
Conclusion
We will have to hope that other boards will not be so hasty and postpone or cancel series which will be quite detrimental to the game itself.
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