Royal Challeger Bengaluru (RCB) Director of Cricket Mo Bobat has revealed why the franchise did not exercise the Right to Match (RTM) option for Mohammed Siraj, Faf Du Plessis and Will Jacks at last month's IPL 2025 Mega Auction.

RCB headed into the big auction with the second biggest purse and three RTM cards. Stepping away from their usual approach of retaining foreign players, the Bengaluru-based side retained only star Indian batter Virat Kohli, fellow Indian batter Rajat Patidar and uncapped Indian pacer Yash Dayal before the auction.

Many expected the Royal Challengers to use up all their three RTMs on their star players from the 2024 squad with pace spearhead Siraj, former skipper Du Plessis and batter Jacks backed to be the ones bought back during the auction.

Why RCB did not use RTM Card for Siraj?

On the first day of the auction, RCB opted against using the RTM for Siraj and earned a little flak from some section of the fanbase and a few experts. But, the franchise's director of cricket Bobat has shed some light on why they opted to not use RTM for Siraj and the other players in an interview with ESPN Cricinfo.

Speaking on CricInfo, Bobat revealed there are lot of things that need to fall in place for any activity at the auction. While the RCB director acknowledged Siraj was one of their RTM picks, the franchise could not take a chance with their main target Bhuvneshwar Kumar arriving very late in the auction.

"We had Bhuvi quite high on our list and we wanted to give ourselves a chance to get him. Unfortunately, the way auctions work out, with Bhuvi coming quite late, it's like a game of poker, to hold your nerve and see whether you can hold on and wait for a player, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't," Bobat was quoted as saying by Cricinfo.

"Unfortunately it didn't work out for us to get Siraj just because of our priorities, auction order and the spending pattern," Bobat added as RCB bought Buvneshwar Kumar on the second day of the auction, when they also opted to keep the RTM card unused for two more priority players.

Why RCB opted against using RTM for Will Jacks?

RCB thinktank also earned flak for giving away Will Jacks to Mumbai Indians, but Bobat said, "That's again quite similar for a couple of other players, both Faf and Will Jacks were definitely guys we were considering right-to-matching (RTM) if things fell a certain way."

"He (Jacks) was definitely someone we were thinking of right-to-matching, but if you wait as deep as he was coming up in the auction, having not filled a role, that is a risk, and given the way the spending pattern works out and given that we missed one or two of our targets, and we had probably a bit more money than we anticipated, you have to make decisions.

"So regrettably, Faf, Jacks and Siraj were guys we had in our minds for right-to-matches, but it just didn't fall that way and you end up building your team slightly differently, which is a shame."

The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) bought Phil Salt and Liam Livingstone as possible replacements for Du Plessis and Jacks, while they also added Josh Hazlewood, Jacob Bethell, Nuwan Thushara, Romario Shepherd, Tim David and Lungi Ngidi as their overseas players for IPL 2025.