Ex-India opener claims RCB is lucky to not have Pat Cummins and should thank SRH
It has been close to a week now since the IPL 2024 auction culminated in Dubai, but still, the purchases of Aussie bowlers Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc are in the news. While many predicted that the duo would fetch a big sum, no one would have ever thought that they’d go beyond INR 20 crore each. But that’s how it is now.
Former opener of team India Aakash Chopra has spoken a few times about both the buys, and in a fresh video on his YouTube channel, he spoke about how RCB dodged a bouncer and couldn’t bag Cummins. The team had only a purse of INR 23.25 crore while entering the IPL 2024 auction.
He said, “They had totally made up their minds that they wanted Pat Cummins at any cost, and they kept going after him and kept lifting the paddle. It went till 20 crores, and I folded my hands and said, ‘Think a little’. If you had got Pat Cummins for 20 crores and you had 23.25 crores, would Pat Cummins have bowled from both ends?”
Chopra further said that Cummins’ inclusion in the RCB would have only weakened their attack. “If they had bought Pat Cummins, if SRH had pulled out at that stage, and they would have gotten him for 20 crores, their team would have become extremely weak. When you released so many players, and if you had picked Pat Cummins on a small Chinnaswamy ground with a flat pitch, you would have been hit a lot.”