6 times RCB overspent on their players in the IPL auction
It is not strange in an IPL auction that a player might be needed by more than one team and the teams that want to buy the player will be involved in some serious bidding process. Because of this, there were instances when unknown players went on to become the most expensive players in the auction.
One such team that often find themselves spending a lot of money for their targets is Royal Challengers Bangalore. While they have made some shrewd buys, they have also broken their bank to get their men. Sometimes, the player ends up being overpriced and not used properly by the side before getting released after just one season because of different reasons.
Let us take a look at six instances when RCB committed blunders by spending more money on their players.
Kevin Pietersen ($1.55 million in 2009)
Without a doubt, former England captain Kevin Pietersen was one of the most destructive batsmen of his time and was always a hot commodity in the T20 format. After the ECB did not allow the Englishmen to be a part of the 2008 IPL, a lot of people were expecting Kevin Pietersen to fetch a huge amount in the 2009 IPL auction that had the English internationals taking part in it.
As expected, Pietersen was the most expensive player of the auction along with his teammate Andrew Flintoff as they were bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings respectively. He managed to play just six matches in the 2009 season in which he was awful for his side as he managed to score just 93 runs at an average of 15.5 and a strike-rate of 109. However, he redeemed himself the next season by scoring 236 runs in seven games at an average of 59 and a strike-rate of 150.
It was clearly mentioned that he won't be a part of the whole season even before the auction and still, RCB paid a lot of money to land the superstar. He eventually ended up playing just 13 matches for them before he was released in 2011.