We wanted Maxwell, specifically targeted him at the auction in February: Virat Kohli

The IPL auction for the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) saw Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) acquiring the services of the Australian power-hitter Glenn Maxwell by shelling out a whopping INR 14.25 crores. The price tag of Maxwell raised many eyebrows in the cricket fraternity as the all-rounder had a below-par run in IPL 2020 as in 13 games he could muster just 108 runs without scoring a single six.

The captain of the Bangalore outfit, Virat Kohli finally broke his silence on the inclusion of Maxwell as he revealed the thought behind picking the Australia Star. Kohli also opened up on the picture that surfaced on social media of Adam Zampa giving RCB cap to Maxwell.

Even before the auctions, RCB’s spinner Zampa presented the team’s cap to the all-rounder and it had caused a controversy on social media. Speaking about the same, Virat Kohli stated, “We wanted Maxi, specifically targeted him at the auction in February. You obviously feel great when things end up happening to where you thought they would.

“Zamps sent me that picture of them (Zampa and Maxwell) at a practice session handing over the RCB cap even before the auction happened. Zamps a very funny guy, thought it was hilarious and I sent it to Maxi as well. He’s a good guy, we’ve caught up in the past as well when I was in Australia on a tour. He’s just very happy to be in RCB and I see different energy about him this time,” Kohli told RCB’s Danish Sait in a video uploaded on Team’s Instagram handle.

 

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Virat Kohli opines on Glenn Maxwell’s failure in IPL

Further in the interaction, the 32-year-old opined on Glenn Maxwell saying that the reason behind the all-rounder’s failure in IPL has been too much focus and attention on him. He believes that while playing for RCB, Maxwell won’t have any such pressure as there are many match-winners in the team and the spotlight will be divided equally among all the guys.

“I don’t think as much as you guys, I mean you as in within your team, want to be the match-winner. You don’t want to be the center of attention all the time and I think that’s something that happened with Maxwell. There are too much focus and attention on you.

“We have decided to pick him, he’s not demanding to go to any team. When you decide to pick a player it’s very important to manage the player as well. And I think having guys like Maxi, Dan Christian, Kyle Jamieson… a lot of experience that we’ve” Kohli concluded.