It might have come as a big surprise for the Bangaloreans to hear exciting batsman Robin Uthappa being bid successfully by Mumbai for a whopping $800,000 (Rs 3,200,0000), but according to Charu Sharma, the CEO of the Vijay Mallya-owned Bangalore team, they lost out in the intense bid for the youngster ‘very narrowly’.
“It’s safe to say that we were just short of the eventual bid he went for,” Charu told Deccan Herald over phone from Mumbai. “We would have loved to have him on board and it’s sad that he went to another team. But the nature of the bid and some other limitations tied our hands,” added Charu.
Uthappa was the 10th costliest player among the 78 players that went under the hammer in Mumbai on Wednesday.
On the face of it, it may seem Bangalore have lost out on a couple of big-time players, but Charu said they got pretty much the team they were looking for. “After lots of permutations and combinations, we can say that we have got a pretty balanced side. It’s not possible to have the complete wish-list you desire,” said Charu.
Charu hoped to fill in the plugs in the side by getting in suitable players from the catchment areas and other Indian players.
Charu, however, sounded more than satisfied with the bowling resources in their side. Bangalore successfully bid for Indian pace spearhead Zaheer Khan, Australian seamer Nathan Bracken and South Africa’s tearaway paceman Dale Steyn. Besides an arguably the best pace attack in the IPL, they also have an all-rounder in Jacques Kallis and leg-spinners Anil Kumble and Cameron White of Australia.
The cricket commentator admitted that they might have missed out on an explosive batsman more suited for the shortest version of the game.
The fact that most of the Aussie big names like Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Brett Lee and Andrew Symonds would be uncertain for at least the initial part of the IPL and their national assignments clashing with the league in the coming years also made them go slow on bidding for them. “That’s one reason plus Cricket Australia’s cap that one team can’t have more than two Australians hampered our choices. And the two players we have are one-day specialists who you can bank upon to appear in more number of matches,” he reasoned.
