Vinay thrilled to be back home

As expected, Royal Challengers Bangalore bid aggressively for R Vinay Kumar and successfully managed to reclaim the paceman they had lost out to now-defunct Kochi Tuskers Kerala in the last auction.

There were obviously a fair few franchisees that fiercely chased the right-arm pacer but it wasn’t until the bid shot up to $550,000 (from a base price of $100,000) that the Challegers stepped in to raise the stake along with Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers and briefly Kings XI Punjab. Once the figure touched 600,000, it was a direct battle between RCB and the Chargers and the Hyderabad side gave up once Bangalore quoted $1 million.

Vinay had been bought for $475,000 for KTK in the previous auction.

“We had Vinay in mind before the auction and I am happy that we have managed to buy him,” remarked Siddartha Mallya, Director, Royal Challengers Sports Ltd. “He brings a lot of value to the team. With seven Indian players needed in the playing XI, we needed top quality players and Vinay is one of them. He has proved himself as a great T20 player in recent T20 matches against Australia.

He is economical and can also bat. He is also the Karnataka Ranji team captain and off the field, he is a big motivator for the local guys. It’s great to bring him back to the team,” he explained.

An elated Vinay, who is part of the touring Indian squad in Australia, tweeted expressing his delight to be home. “Back to namma bangalore... Yeee :):) looking forward 2 meet my team mates.... It’s a great feelng 2 be part of RCB...”

RCB also bagged Sri Lanka’s iconic spinner Muttiah Muralitharan at just $20,000 more than his base price of $200,000. The junior Mallya termed their buy a ‘steal.’ “Getting a player of Murali’s stature for such a price is really great. We have Daniel Vettori, but in case he is not available for any reason, we now have Murali. With Anil (Kumble) as a mentor and Dan and Murali in the side, these three can also help us in developing young spinners. Anyone with over 1000 international wickets is a great asset to the team,” he observed.