Mo Bobat on how RCB finalized the trade for “high-quality” Cameron Green

Royal Challengers Bangalore made all the right noises during a chaotic trade window that saw them trading in Mayank Dagar in the wee hours of a bustling Sunday morning. However, the drama was still to unfold and it came a day after the retentions were announced that hard-hitting all-rounder, Cameron Green, was roped in by the Royal Challengers Bangalore as a part of an all-cash deal with the Mumbai Indians, which leaves them with a purse of INR 23 crore ahead of the IPL 2024 auction.

RCB’s new Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat, shared his thoughts on the trade and spoke on what Green brings to the table. 

Talking on the latest episode of RCB Bold Diaries, Bobat said, “He's a high-quality, skillful and powerful batsman. He's got the game against both pace and spin. He's got international experience across formats and I'm sure he will enjoy batting at the Chinnaswamy. So, seeing him do that will be really exciting. He's also a fantastic bowler and he bowls with pace and bounce, which were certainly attributes we were looking for particularly in our home conditions. Let's not forget what an exceptional fielder he is. Some of the catches he has taken in recent times fielding at gully is seriously impressive."

Bobat further delved into how the trade came about in the eleventh hour, giving fans a detailed insight into the management’s thought process behind putting pen to paper for Green’s signature.

He further added, “If I go back to mid-morning yesterday [Sunday], we were pretty clear on our retentions and release decisions and we had communicated it to all of our players. We were pretty clear on what that meant for our auction priorities. So, felt like we were going to have a fairly quiet afternoon. If you look at the retentions and the decisions we made, we've obviously got a really strong top order and we wanted to enhance the middle order by adding a little bit of power.”

Bobat continued, “With a couple of hours off the retention and release deadline, we were made aware of Cameron's potential availability for trade, which we had to take seriously. So, having spoken to the guys at MI, we got a small group of us together at our end. We thought we better discuss this and debate the pros and cons of trying to make this trade work, which is what we did for a little bit of time.”

He concluded by saying, “Essentially, we were trying to weigh up whether we take the risk of someone else picking up Cameron Green now, which could have happened before the deadline...hoping he makes it to the auction as a released player, but somebody else could've picked him up, which was obviously the case. Even then if you get to the auction, there's no guarantee that you'll get him at the auction because you can easily be outbid."