Kyle Jamieson Is Our First Choice: RCB Director Mike Hesson Ahead Of IPL 2021 Auction

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) created a couple of million-dollar men at the IPL 2021 auction that transpired in Chennai on the 18th of February. RCB’s director of operations, Mike Hesson, had an instrumental role in crafting the franchise’s strategies and has revealed the mindset behind going for various players. On this occasion, Hesson highlighted the thinking process behind signing Kyle Jamieson.

New Zealand latest pace sensation and hard-hitting lower-order batsman Kyle Jamieson was one of the highest buys in the IPL 2021 auction. The towering quick fetched a mammoth INR 15 crores from the Royal Challengers Bangalore, becoming the second-highest-paid cricketer behind Chris Morris’ INR 16.25 crores. Jamieson was amongst the three overseas all-rounders signed by the three-time finalists – the other two being Glenn Maxwell and Daniel Christian.

Mike Hesson told captain Virat Kohli and coach Simon Katich that Kyle Jamieson remains their first-choice; however, he comes the third out of Chris Morris and Jhye Richardson. At the same time, the former New Zealand coach felt that it was necessarily not going to go according to their wishes and need to decide how far they will go for him.

“Talking to Virat, Simon, he’s (Kyle Jamieson) our first choice but, he comes the third out of (Chris) Morris and Jhye Richardson. To be honest, because he’s our first choice and meant that we’re able to get them it’s not always going to work out that way so got to decide how far we’re going to go,” Hesson stated as quoted by the franchise’s official site.

RCB on buying back Chris Morris:

Chris Morris, who the RCB released ahead of IPL 2021, was in the franchise’s mix, and Hesson highlighted that they would bid for him till INR 9 crores. Anand Kripalu, who is the chairman of RCB, remarked that if Morris comes to them with INR 9 crores, they have to leave out Jamieson and Richardson.

“Yeah, that’s fine (pushing for Morris till 9 crores) and then I think if we do that then and we get him then we go okay, we’ve saved a crore,” Hesson added.

“I mean before spoiling somebody else, you got to fix your stuff right. You shouldn’t spoil yourself, that’s no strategy at all. So, I think we need to be clear what that circuit breaker is and are we comfortable with Morris at 9 crores and then leaving out (Jyhe) Richardson and (Kyle) Jamieson,” Kripalu said.

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Here is a video of how RCB planned to bid for Kiwi All-rounder Kyle Jamieson: