Challengers ease out Karthik

Royal Challengers Bangalore have released Dinesh Karthik, their costliest buy of 2015 (not considering the retained ones), during a trading window that closed on Thursday.

The Bengaluru franchise had bought Karthik for a staggering amount of Rs 10.5 crore but the wicketkeeper-batsman didn’t live up to expectations with the bat during a campaign that ended after the team’s defeat in the play-off against Chennai Super Kings in Ranchi.

Besides Karthik, Royal Challengers also let go West Indies all-rounder Darren Sammy, South African opener Rilee Rossouw and Aussie paceman Sean Abbott.

Among the Indians, pacer Ashok Dinda and veteran batsman S Badrinath too were off-loaded.

Expectedly, the team’s core unit, which is batting-heavy, was kept intact with Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers besides skipper Virat Kohli being retained.South African all-rounder David Weise and Aussie paceman Mitchell Starc too have been retained.

The only new addition to the side is that of Maharashtra batsman Kedar Jadhav.Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya was happy to have the right-hander in his team.

“RCB are very pleased to have acquired Kedar Jadhav who, we believe, has the potential to change the course of a T20 game with his finishing talent with the bat. Kedar will add tremendous value to our middle-order and will complement our existing line-up,” said Mallya.

Among the local players, left-arm seamer S Arvind retained his place while left-handed batsman Shishir Bhavane was released.  In all, RCB spent Rs 44.37 crore to retain 14 players and they are now left with Rs 21.62 crore to buy the rest of the squad at the February 6 auction in Bengaluru.

Other Karnataka players to be retained were Mayank Agarwal (Delhi Daredevils), Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappa (both Kolkata Knight Riders), J Suchith, Shreyas Gopal and R Vinay Kumar (all Mumbai Indians) and KL Rahul (Sunrisers Hyderabad).

CM Gautam (Daredevils), KC Kariappa (Knight Riders) and Abhimanyu Mithun (Mumbai Indians) were released from their respective teams.