Dravid satisfied with squad
Rahul Dravid has said that he was happy with the players the Bangalore franchise had procured in the IPL auction, adding that his side had the players who can handle pressure.
Dravid, the icon for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, played down the talk of his side not buying any big name. "This is an erroneous perception," he said. "The quality of Indian and international players in our team speak for themselves. They may not be glamorous in the areas people typically judge them by, but in terms of cricket they are fantastic and at the end of the day this is a cricket tournament and cricket is what is important."
Unlike the others, the Bangalore franchise preferred innings builders, like Jacques Kallis, Wasim Jaffer and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, to aggressors. "We have players who have played under pressure," said Dravid, "and therefore are confident that under similar circumstances in the Twenty20 matches, they will perform exceedingly well."
Robin Uthappa, the Bangalore-based batsman, was bought by the Mumbai franchise for a whopping US$800,000. Not only would Uthappa have provided a balance to the batting line-up but also helped Bangalore fill up one slot among the four catchment area players.
"As a Bangalore player, I obviously would have liked to have had Robin, who is from our catchment area, in the team," said Dravid. "However, in an auction where there are rules and restrictions, it is not always possible to get every player one wants. In fact none of the teams were able to get all the players they would have liked to. However, having said that I would like to add that I am excited with the team we have got."
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