IPL 2021 auction preview: Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) squad details

The 2020 IPL season ended for Royal Challengers Bangalore as many a season in the past has ended. With a series of defeats, no trophy and questions over Virat Kohli’s captaincy. But the early part of the season was so impressive for the team that they managed to re-enter the post-season after a couple of poor campaigns. The way it ended clouded over the fact RCB actually had a pretty season overall.

Results in last three seasons

Season	League stage finish	Playoff result
IPL 2018	6th
IPL 2019	8th
IPL 2020	4th	Lost in Eliminator

Speaking on Star Sports when the retentions were confirmed, former New Zealand and CSK all-rounder Scott Styris was stunned looking at the names that RCB had let go. He could not quite come to terms with the fact that the team chose to go for a massive overhaul despite a playoff finish. But in essence, except for Chris Morris perhaps, the team management did not let go of any indispensable member of the squad (and Aaron Finch simply did not do enough to merit retention).

Players released after IPL 2020: Chris Morris, Shivam Dube, Aaron Finch, Umesh Yadav, Dale Steyn, Moeen Ali, Parthiv Patel, Pawan Negi, Isuru Udana, Gurkeerat Mann
Player traded in: Harshal Patel and Daniel Sams from DC

RCB squad for IPL 2021 ahead of auction

Batsmen	Bowlers	Wicketkeepers	Allrounders
Virat Kohli	Mohammed Siraj	AB de Villiers	Washington Sundar
Devdutt Padikkal	Navdeep Saini	Josh Phillipe	Harshal Patel
Pavan Deshpande	Yuzvendra Chahal		Daniel Sams
	Pavan Deshpande
	Shahbaz Ahmed
	Adam Zampa
	Kane Richardson

There could be quite a bit of inflating and deflating going on from the RCB table. They have the most slots left to fill in the squad (even if they don’t *have* to, like they left a few empty last season). There is no doubt that the focus would be on getting three good overseas players to improve their existing Indian core.