RCB to retain Gayle, Kohli and de Villiers

As expected, the Bangalore franchise have decided to retain their stalwarts Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. The IPL commission had set January 10th 2014 as the last date for player retention.

In a surprise move, they have named Daniel Vettori, who is still playing active cricket as their head coach and Allan Donald will be the bowling coach. Trent Woodhill was named as the batting and fielding coach for the season.

Gayle, the 33 year old Jamaican, who joined RCB in 2011 was their prolific run scorer in the IPL and the CLT20. He, almost, single-handedly took them to the final. In the 2012 season, he amassed 733 runs at a strike-rate of 160. In the 2013 season, he broke almost all records in T20 matches by scoring 175* against Pune, which still is the highest individual score in T20 matches. He also slammed the fastest century across formats off just 30 balls during the course of that innings.

Virat Kohli, who is in a rich vein of form in all three formats of International cricket off late and who was RCB's skipper for the previous season was also retained and is most likely to continue as their skipper. AB de Villiers who would double up as the wicket-keeper adds balance and is one of the most dangerous batsman in this format.

With RCB deciding to retain 3 players, they can exercise the "rights to match" option only once in the upcoming auctions on February 12th and 13th. The right to match card gives the franchises the overriding rights to their players. A team can get hold of a player after the completion of the bidding process. Once the final bid for the player is made and the auctioneer calls "sold", he will ask the franchise the player belonged to if they want to use the right to match option. In case the franchise wants that player, all it has to do is to pay the final amount bid.

A fixed amount will be deducted from the RCB's salary purse of 60 crores for 2014 for each of the players retained. Rs 12.5 crores for player one, 9.5 crores for player two and 7.5 crores for player 3. After this retention, the franchise will be left with Rs 30.5 crores to spend at the auctions.

The IPL governing council for this season had decided that each team should have at least 16 players in the squad but not more than 27 players and a maximum of 9 overseas players per team. Though there is no minimum quota for catchment area players, the governing council said Under-19 players must have played either First Class or List A before signing for the IPL.