Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s think tank has revealed why they decided to release fast bowler Mohammed Siraj ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction. RCB has retained Virat Kohli (21 crore), Rajat Patidar (11 crore), and Yash Dayal (5 crore) and decided to release players like Faf du Plessis and Siraj.

Siraj scalped 15 wickets in 14 matches of the previous season at an average of 21.60 and an economy rate of 9.18. Ahead of IPL 2022 mega auction, Siraj was retained for INR 7 crore but he was released this time around.

Head coach Andy Flower said they decided to retain Yash Dayal ahead of Siraj because of the former’s left-arm angle.

“I’m sure one of the surprises around our retentions will be the fact that we haven’t retained Mohamed Siraj. Mohamed Siraj is a successful international cricketer of some standing and has also been with RCB for the last eight years,” Andy Flower said while speaking to the franchise.

“We want to look for some particular skills in the fast bowling department. We’ve already identified and retained one of those particular skills that we want, which is the left arm angle and T20 skills that Yash Dayal brings us,” he added.

On the other hand, RCB director of cricket Mo Bobat revealed they had a long discussion when it came to Mohammed Siraj but in the end, decided to release the fast bowler from Hyderabad.

“Probably the discussion that took up the most time for us actually was our decision to whether we retain or release Mohamed Siraj. When he’s got his tail up, he’s got that real fire that you can see that becomes infectious for the rest of the team. He bounces quite strongly off Virat and those two as a combination have been quite powerful. It was a big decision for us to make to not retain Siraj because of all of those skills and attributes,” Bobat said.

It is worth mentioning that RCB can still retain Siraj through Right to Match.