Mumbai, Nov 27: Mumbai Indians on Monday traded their all-rounder Cameron Green to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) ahead of the IPL 2024 player auction.
MI all-rounder Cameron Green has been traded to Royal Challengers Bangalore. Green, who was bought for a whopping Rs 17.5 crore at the auction last December, featured in 16 matches. The Australian had an impressive start to the IPL, hitting an unbeaten century and two half-centuries while also taking six wickets. Trade has been carried out as per the existing player fee.
This action coincides with the successful completion by the Mumbai Indians of another high-profile all-cash deal to acquire all-rounder Hardik Pandya from Gujarat Titans.
Green’s quickfire 26-ball 44 in the iconic chase against Rajasthan Royals and his century in the final league game to carry MI into the playoffs will be his monumental performances in the IPL for MI.
“With Hardik Pandya drafted in (Rs 15 INR) and Green released (Rs 17.5 cr INR), the purse with Mumbai Indians going into the IPL 2024 Auction of is now 17.75cr INR,” Mumbai Indians said in an official statement.
Sri Lanka spinner Wanindu Hasaranga, Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood, and Indian pacer Harshal Patel are among the players released by RCB ahead of the IPL next year.
Among the other released players are New Zealand players Finn Allen, Michael Bracewell, South African all-rounder Wayne Parnell, England’s David Willey and Indian players Sonu Yadav, Avinash Singh, Siddharth Kaul and Kedar Jadhav.
RCB traded Shahbaz Ahmed, their all-rounder to Sunrisers Hyderabad, in exchange for all-rounder Mayank Dagar.
The player retention window for the Indian Premier League 2024 season closed on Sunday, the 10 franchises have cumulatively retained 173 players.
Green ideal for middle-order power role
Green could be an ideal fit for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the middle-order powerful batter role, believes director of cricket Mo Bobat. On Monday, IPL announced that Green was traded to RCB from Mumbai Indians, who had retained him when the retentions deadline was at 5pm on Sunday.
“After doing back and forth, we agreed for the cash trade, but only at the eleventh hour and it was an exciting finish. He’s the ideal fit for us in that middle-order power role. 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,” said Bobat in a RCB Bold Diaries video.
He went on to explain the turn of events behind how they got Green, a member of Australia’s 2023 ODI World Cup winning squad, from MI. “It was pretty exciting and 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. Preferably that power was a batting pace all-rounder, which would give depth & balance the squad as well as team in a very different way. We had made the difficult decision to let go of Wanindu Hasaranga and if there was a perfect fit, it was Cameron Green, which we discussed as an option if available ahead of the auction.”
By trading in Green, RCB now have INR 23.35 crores to fill up six slots at the IPL auction set to happen on Dec 19 in Dubai. (Agencies)
