IPL 2021: Hesson pleased with Siraj, Sundar, Saini retention

RCB will be pleased to retain Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj and Navdeep Saini - members of the Indian team which recently won a famous Test series in Australia.

Published : Jan 20, 2021 21:55 IST

Mike Hesson lauded the trio's performance with the Test side in Australia.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will be pleased to retain Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj and Navdeep Saini - members of the Indian team which recently won a famous Test series in Australia.

“We’ve retained a number of young players - Washington, Siraj, Shahbaz Nadeem, Devdutt Padikkal and Saini. It’s pleasing to see how they’ve progressed. And the way they (Siraj, Sundar and Saini) performed with the Test side in Australia was phenomenal. We’re proud that they are associated with RCB,” Director of Cricket Operations, Mike Hesson, stated in an RCB Twitter handle video.

 

On releasing Australian opening batsman Aaron Finch and South African all-rounder Chris Morris, Hesson said: “As a ₹10 crore signing, Morris was a big part of our resource. But he had some injuries and missed quite a lot of cricket. Morris hasn’t played high-level cricket since then, so there is some risk there. As for Finch, it did not quite work out for him as we’d have liked. We have (Australian wicketkeeper-batsman) Josh Philippe as a top-order cover (for Finch).”

Hesson added that skipper Virat Kohli was closely involved in team’s retention strategy.

In the last IPL edition, RCB qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2016, before losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator.