Aakash Chopra and RCB. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCi)
Former Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya has been the talk of the town ever since he decided to join Mumbai Indians to play in the IPL 2024. After a couple of successful years as a captain and also as a player, the Rohit Sharma-led side has shown interest in signing the all-rounder back for the next season but the process got difficult as the franchise didn’t have enough cash to do so.
They had to release some players for the transaction to fall through and that’s when Royal Challengers Bangalore showed interest in signing star all-rounder Cameron Green. The Australia international is the second highest-paid cricketer in IPL history but RCB decided to bring him in for the next season, which helped MI release a lot of funds, which made room for Hardik Pandya.
Analysing the situation, former cricketer Aakash Chopra stated that RCB did a huge favour to MI, as without their support, the five-time champions wouldn’t have pulled up the trade of Pandya. He also added that RCB could have signed Green from the auction had Mumbai released him to make room for Pandya. However, Chopra eventually lauded MI to make this deal possible.
“They (RCB) did a huge favour to Mumbai because if this deal had not happened, the Hardik deal too wouldn’t have happened. Things have changed suddenly. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to stop that (Hardik’s) deal by not doing this deal. I am seeing it from Bangalore’s perspective and not from Mumbai’s.
“They (MI) would have released him. Would you have got Cameron Green more expensive than 17.5 crores if they had released him? If you had over Rs 40 crore and then you wanted to buy Green in the auction, you could have got him. Mumbai Indians, well done,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
On the other hand, Mumbai are left with INR 17.75 crore while RCB have INR 23.25 crore to shop from the upcoming IPL mini-auction, which is slated to take place on December 19 in Dubai.