Mo Bobat reveals why RCB went big for Venkatesh Iyer in IPL 2025 mega auction

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) bagged their maiden IPL title earlier this year. But ahead of the 2025 season, during the mega auction, RCB were seen bidding aggressively for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) batter Venkatesh Iyer. They pushed as high as INR 23.50 crores but eventually lost out, as KKR secured him for a mammoth INR 23.75 crores.

Now, in an exclusive chat with Cricbuzz, RCB’s Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat, has opened up about the reason behind their plan to go so aggressively for Iyer.

He clearly stated that their initial plan was to sign Yuzvendra Chahal as their primary wrist spinner. RCB did bid for him, but once the price went beyond their expected budget, they had to pull out. According to Bobat, that situation freed up extra funds, which they redirected towards targeting Iyer.

“So, to understand what we were doing with Venkatesh Iyer, you have to understand what didn't happen for us with Yuzi Chahal. We were very keen on Yuzi Chahal as our first spinner, as our wrist spinner. We bid up to, it might have been INR 14 crore or something in the end. We actually set our budget at around 12 or 13 [he'd never gone past six] and we crept a bit above it to try and get him. Our second choice was Suyash and we knew that we didn't need a 12 or 13 budget for Suyash. We might have needed three or four or something like that,” he said.

“So, the moment we didn't get Yuzi, we thought we'll give ourselves a chance of guaranteeing Suyash. We had extra money to put towards the left-handed Indian batter that we were after. So, Venkatesh Iyer came up. We had set a bit of a budget for the player, but the money we hadn't used for Yuzi, I was thinking we would allocate that towards Venky Iyer and get a left-handed Indian batter and somebody who's got experience in IPL,” Bobat added.

However, it turned out to be a disappointing IPL 2025 season for Iyer at KKR. Despite being named vice-captain of the side, he managed only 142 runs in 11 matches at an average of 20.28, with just one fifty to his name.

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