‘Not retaining him was…’ RCB’s director of Cricket Mo Bobat reveals reason behind not buying Mohammed Siraj during IPL 2025 Auctions

Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) director of cricket, Mo Bobat, has stated his intention to end the trophy drought. The statement comes just months before the start of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season. Mo Bobat was in chat with ESPN CRICINFO, where he also revealed the main reason why Mohammed Siraj wasn’t re-signed by the team. 

RCB’s director of cricket said, “It is important to recognise what Siraj has done for RCB over a number of years. He’s been a champion player for us. Not retaining him was one of our tougher decisions, if not the toughest. We had Bhuvneshwar Kumar quite high on our list, and we wanted to give ourselves a chance to get him." The decision to not buy Siraj, who has been with RCB for a long time, was a huge shock for the team’s faithful.

Mo Bobat also said, “Unfortunately, the way auctions work out, with Bhuvi coming quite late, it’s like a game of poker, to hold your nerve and see whether you can hold on and wait for a player, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for us to get Siraj just because of our priorities, the auction order, and the spending pattern. That’s again quite similar for a couple of other players; both Faf and Will Jacks were definitely guys; we were considering RTM if things fell a certain way.” 

Mo Bobat reveals his regret during IPL Auction 2025

During the course of his chat with ESPN CRICINFO, Mo Bobat also said, “I’m incredibly fond of Will, and he was brilliant last year when he came into the team. He was definitely someone we were thinking of right-to-matching, but if you wait as deep as he was coming up in the auction, having not filled a role, that is a risk, and given the way the spending pattern works out.”

“Given that we missed one or two of our targets and we had probably a bit more money than we anticipated, you have to make decisions. So regrettably, Faf, Jacks, and Siraj were guys we had in our minds for right-to-matches, but it just didn’t fall that way, and you end up building your team slightly differently, which is a shame,” also added Mo Bobat. 

When asked about RCB’s chances of winning the title in the coming season, Mo Bobat said, “Winning the IPL is our target, but the way we play is our obsession. We want to get our competitive identity, and if we do that, it'll take care of itself. Now, the proof will be in the pudding. We'll find out when we get into the competition, but if you want a different outcome, you've got to have a different approach.”