RCB Buy Alzarri Joseph For 11.50 Crores In IPL Auction, RP Singh Names The Pacer Who Will Play In Place Of Joseph

Former Indian Left-arm pacer and 2007 T20 World Cup winner RP Singh shocked everyone when he said that the Royal Challengers Bangalore should back New Zealand pacer Lockie Ferguson to start ahead of 11 Crore buy Alzarri Joseph in RCB’s playing 11 for IPL 2024. The South Indian outfit went all in for the West Indies pacer who spent the last 2 seasons playing for Gujarat Titans.

Joseph made his IPL debut in 2019 with the Mumbai Indians where he picked up 6 wickets in 3 matches. He would miss the following 2 seasons before Gujarat Titans acquired him during the auction for IPL 2022 for 2 Crores from a base price of 75 Lakhs. But given the talent and trust Gujarat Titans had in him, Alzarri was more or less disappointed with his performances over the 2 seasons.

In his 2 seasons, he could only get 14 wickets combined, 7 in each season. And perhaps that is the reason why Gujarat Titans had to let go of him. This year when he was up for auction, RCB went all in for him and bought him for 11 Crores right after losing the battle to get Pat Cummins who went to the Sunrisers Hyderabad for 20 Crores.

After that RCB bought Yash Dayal for 5 Crores and Tom Curran for 1.5 Crores before welcoming New Zealand pacer Lockie Ferguson into the squad for his base price of 2 Crores before concluding their auction with Swapnil Singh and Saurav Chauhan. The bowling department has always remained a major concern for RCB but they will be satisfied with their buys for the upcoming edition starting from March.

But now the main question is who will be spearheading RCB’s bowling attack along with Indian national team pacer Mohammad Siraj? The way RCB approached the signing of Alzarri Joseph, the West Indies could be expected to start but against him is a Kiwi pacer who has been playing in the IPL since 2017. While both of them can regularly bowl at 140+, it will be interesting to see whom RCB will be backing, their record signing, or the base price signing.

RP Singh Approves that Lockie Ferguson Will Have A Bigger Impact than Alzarri Joseph

While analyzing the RCB team on Jio Cinema, RP Singh comprehended that 32-year-old Lockie Ferguson would be a better option to start with as compared to Alzarri Joseph. He also expressed his confusion regarding RCB going for the Kiwi International despite splashing big on Joseph early on in the auction.

He also highlighted the fact that Joseph despite being an expensive buy, cannot or should not be a guaranteed starter in the RCB playing 11.“I will make one change. I will want to keep Lockie Ferguson instead of Alzarri Joseph. I feel he can have a bigger impact. If you have given more money to someone, it doesn’t mean you have to play him, or that you need to build your team around him.”

“RCB surprised me a little. The most surprising thing was they left Lockie Ferguson and went a long way for Alzarri Joseph, who was the next player after him. Then they also included Yash Dayal in their team. They also took Tom Curran later.”

Another reason why Alzarri Joseph might not start ahead of Lockie Ferguson is that the former was originally bought because his name was put up in the auction before Mitchell Starc. Therefore, it means that Joseph was not their priority and he was brought in because RCB didn’t want to take any risk of losing him while waiting for their main target to come up.

RCB Full Squad for IPL 2024: Faf du Plessis (c), Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh, Saurav Chauhan.