Mike Hesson, former Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), director revealed that Yuzvendra Chahal was communicated to personally about his release ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022.
With Chahal not being part of the marquee players list in the mega auction, RCB's bid to reacquire him and Harshal Patel faced challenges due to the auction's scale.
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While RCB managed to retain Patel, Chahal found a new home with Rajasthan Royals. RCB filled the void by acquiring Sri Lanka all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga.
What did Mike Heeson say?
"Yuzi was communicated with a huge amount. And I know that because I was the guy at the other end of the phone. I remember ringing Yuzi afterwards and he was upset. It was very difficult to try and explain the auction dynamics to him at that time. He was visibly disinterested, and I don't blame him. He was an RCBian and he was frustrated. But I can assure everyone that he is well-aware of the issues we were confronted with," Hesson told Cricket.com.
"I spoke to Yuzi (Yuzvendra Chahal) obviously when we did the initial retention and we only retained three players because we felt we wanted to try and buy back both Harshal Patel and Yuzi at the auction.
"Probably the thing that I'm really frustrated about even now is as you said Yuzi is probably one of the top-five players of all time for RCB but he was also one of the best ever in the IPL and the fact that he couldn't make the top two marquee lists at that time was ridiculous, the fact that he came in as number 65 on the auction list means that it was really difficult for us to guarantee we were going to get him," the former New Zealand coach added.
However, Heeson was all-praise for Hasaranga and believes that the Sril Nkana is more rounded than his Indian counterpart.
"For Chahal, we knew there were five other teams that had more money than us and if we let go of all the bowlers before that and then we got to bidding for Yuzi and everyone knew we were going for Yuzi and we didn't get him, we could have got bullied by five other teams and then been left with no leg spinner. So it was one that we'd spent hours and hours debating and trying to manipulate the mock auctions of how we could potentially leave ourselves with Yuzi. We felt we needed to have a decent dip at Wanindu Hasaranga obviously the fact he was, a three-dimensional player, batting for Sri Lanka had been really good at that time, was well, good player of spin and was performing incredibly well on the international stage. So we felt that if we weren't going to get Yuzi, Hasaranga was a really nice option for us," Hesson explained.
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