Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has disagreed with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) decision not to reacquire Will Jacks at the IPL 2025 auction. He said that the England all-rounder was available for a relatively cheap price. Notably, RCB released Jacks ahead of the auction and didn’t bid or use the Right To Match card for him. He was acquired by the Mumbai Indians (MI) for ₹5.25 crore as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “Not keeping Will Jacks was a very interesting story. They neither bid nor used the RTM for him. There was a lot of discussion on that because we all thought they would definitely keep Will Jacks. However, this team thought that their top order was sorted and they don’t need Will Jacks in that. It’s a matter of thinking,” he said.
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“Will Jacks could have played as an opener, and you could have spent ₹25-27 crore for Rishabh Pant in the middle, or else you could have kept KL Rahul. You had ₹83 crore. Leaving Will Jacks was a bit of a surprise for me. Personally, I disagree with that decision. I won’t say that their team has become weak because of that, but Will Jacks was worth it for ₹5-6 crore,” Chopra again added.
In the same video, Aakash Chopra also picked RCB’s spin-bowling attack as a potential weakness in IPL 2025 as well.
“After Yuzvendra Chahal, they haven’t got a good spinner like that. They have taken Krunal Pandya. Krunal Pandya is very defensive. His economy is good at this ground (Chinnaswamy Stadium) as well, but Krunal Pandya is not your wicket-taking left-arm spinner. He will give a little batting, but it’s Krunal Pandya,” he said.
“The second spinner they have is Suyash Sharma. Then they have Swapnil Singh. So Swapnil, Suyash, Krunal Pandya, and Liam Livingstone with them, if you think this is the spin-bowling department, will you (the opposing team) be worried? I will not be worried at all. Good spinners are thrashed at that ground,” Chopra observed.
