Royal Challengers Bengaluru must be regretting not having signed KL Rahul for IPL 2025. Even after the Karnataka keeper-batter had expressed interest in joining RCB after being released by LSG, no interest was shown in him by the former. Now, he’s gone on to perform exceptionally well for his new franchise – Delhi Capitals. RCB now might be wondering why they did not bag Rahul when they had a golden opportunity.
Did RCB commit blunder by not signing Rahul?
In the IPL 2025 mega-auction, RCB and KKR were two teams that bidded for Rahul when his name came up. RCB decided to pull out when the price reached Rs 10.75 crore. Eventually, RCB’s loss turned out to be DC’s gain. Having entered the auction for KL at Rs 11 crore, DC managed to bag the star for Rs 14 cr, with LSG not deciding to use the Right to Match (RTM) card.
It is pertinent to point out that KL Rahul commenced his IPL journey with RCB. He was a part of the franchise for one season (2013) and played five games before moving to SRH for the next two years. He then once again returned to RCB in 2016, where he scored 397 runs from 14 games.
KL Rahul’s tenure with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) spanned two seasons: 2013 and 2016. Here’s a summary of his performance during those years:
| Season | Matches | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | HS | 50s/100s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 5 | 20 | 10.00 | 125.00 | 12 | 0/0 |
| 2016 | 14 | 397 | 44.11 | 146.49 | 68* | 4/0 |
Thereafter, he moved to PBKS, then to LSG before settling down with DC. On Thursday, he took revenge against RCB for ignoring him in the auction. Despite not having a great record at his home ground Bengaluru, Rahul stayed unbeaten at 93 to guide his new team to a 6-wicket win. In fact, his celebration after hitting the winning six – where he said that “this is my ground” – indicates that he intended to give an aggessive response to RCB’s snub.
“Of course (Would you like to be back at RCB?) Bengaluru is home. People there know me as a local Kannada boy. Would be nice to go back there and get an opportunity. But, yeah, it’s an auction year, you can go anywhere,” Rahul had said on being asked if he would want to return to RCB.
However, RCB decided ignore him and now he has responded in style. Rahul’s innings serves a warning to all the franchises who ignore homegrown talents for other star power.
Rahul is no stranger to playing in Bengaluru. After all, he has been playing for Karnataka since 2014 and 2016 across formats in domestic cricket. The knock on Thursday was a reminder to both RCB and the Karnataka team – to never count him out.
