Royal Challengers Bangalore signed former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis for INR 7 crores on Day 1 of IPL 2022 auction, beating Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals in the bidding war. Now a week after the auctions, a video of RCB’s mock auction for du Plessis has been posted on their official social media handles.
Mike Hesson, RCB’s Director of Cricket, can be seen in the video predicting that CSK will try to re-buy Faf in the auctions. Hesson also added that due to purse limitations, not many teams would expect Bangalore to bid for the Marquee Player.
“It’s pretty clear that CSK will likely try and get him [Faf du Plessis] back, as they do with all their players. He’s also in the marquee group; for us to have some structure going forward, we need to allocate some budget to get that. We would want to go through teams who might look at him. CSK will obviously make a bid, no one will expect us in terms of who we are likely to go for.”, Hesson said.
Faf is a strong character and highly respected- Mike Hesson
Mike Hesson stated that Faf du Plessis has all the qualities needed in a leader. He also lauded Faf for the consistency in his IPL performances over the years.
“With the options we have in our current squad and the uncertainty surrounding those, and the options we have at the auction, where we think we can gain a real advantage is with Faf du Plessis who is highly experienced. He has captained South Africa for long, won the IPL many times and is a very consistent performer in terms of how he operates. He’s a strong character and highly respected. These are a lot of attributes you want in a leader.”, said Hesson.
With 633 runs from 16 matches, the former CSK player was the second-highest run-getter in IPL 2021. Faf’s opening combination with Ruturaj Gaikwad was one of the key reasons for CSK’s title triumph last year.
