I feel Venkatesh Iyer would have had a really great season had he played for us: RCB head coach Andy Flower
"We really rated Venky (highly), that's why we went so hard for him," RCB head coach Andy Flower said.
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Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) head coach Andy Flower etched his name into the annals of franchise cricket after guiding Rajat Patidar and Co. to the coveted Indian Premier League (IPL) title on Tuesday, June 3. RCB became champions of the IPL for the first time, ending a long wait of 18 years.
After playing a significant role in the triumph, Flower revealed why the management went hard to secure the services of Venkatesh Iyer at the IPL 2025 mega auction. The former Zimbabwe captain said that the Madhya Pradesh all-rounder is rated highly by the RCB camp, and that they wanted to have a left-handed Indian batter in the top-order. RCB were willing to spend INR 23.50 crore on Iyer, but Kolkata Knight Riders eventually brought him back with a winning bid of INR 23.75 crore.
However, Venkatesh had a forgettable season, finishing with just 142 runs from 11 matches at an average of 20.29. He managed just a solitary half-century in the campaign. Flower, however, feels that the 31-year-old would have excelled had he played for RCB in IPL 2025.
"We really rated Venky (highly), that's why we went so hard for him. It was because we valued having a strong Indian core to our team. We wanted some exciting young cricketers and a left-hander in the top order. We didn't get him. I would like to think if he played for us, he would have had a really great season," Flower said after RCB's title win in Ahmedabad.
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Having failed to rope in Venkatesh, RCB switched to plan B and brought back Devdutt Padikkal in their lineup for a base price of INR 2 crore after he went unsold in the first round. The Karnataka batter had a decent outing at No. 3, scoring 247 runs from 10 matches at an average of 27.44 and a strike rate of 150.61 before a hamstring injury ruled him out of the latter half of the tournament.
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