What the franchises would look for in the IPL 2017 Auction

2. Royal Challengers Bangalore

The side led by Virat Kohli had a tremendous time in the last season as they made it to the final but fell just one step short. Their skipper himself was the leading player scoring 4 centuries in the league. This time they would look to make it better by covering that one extra mile. The most prominent players in the squad are:

Openers: Virat Kohli (C), Chris Gayle, Mandeep Singh

Middle Order Batsmen: KL Rahul (wk), AB de Villiers, Kedar Jadhav, Sarfaraz Khan, Travis Head

All-rounders: Shane Watson, Stuart Binny

Spinners: Yuzvendra Chahal, Iqbal Abdulla, Samuel Badree, Tabraiz Shamsi

Fast Bowlers: Mitchell Starc, Sreenath Aravind, Harshal Patel, Adam Milne

What’s required

In the last season, they were dominating all teams due to their heavy batting line-up and the weakness in the bowling department was pretty much covered up. But they need strength, especially in the pace division. They can spend INR 12.825 crores and have only one spot left for a foreign player and so, they can go big to buy a pacer or a fast bowling all-rounder.

They could set their eyes on players like Ben Stokes or Irfan Pathan for the all-rounder’s spot. If they fail to get Stokes, they can look for a foreign pacer like Kagiso Rabada or Tymal Mills or an Indian fast bowler like Ishant Sharma.

If they are left with a good amount to spend after the above, they can look to bring in an extra Indian spinner in the squad as a backup for Chahal. To keep the wickets, they have KL Rahul with AB de Villiers and Kedar Jadhav who can don the gloves too.