Former India player Mohammad Kaif has criticized the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for not reacquiring Will Jacks at the IPL 2025 auction. He also stated that the England all-rounder played a significant role in the franchise’s run to the playoffs in IPL 2024 as well. The Mumbai Indians (MI) bought Jacks for ₹5.25 crore after a bidding war with the Punjab Kings (PBKS) too. Although RCB had the Right To Match card option to reacquire him, they opted not to use it.
During a discussion on Star Sports, Kaif said, “Jacks saved their honor last year. RCB came in the top four because of him. I remember two matches. He helped RCB beat SRH (SunRisers Hyderabad) in Hyderabad with his bowling and scored a hundred against GT (Gujarat Titans) in Ahmedabad off 40 balls. So Will Jacks won them two matches on his own and they didn’t take him.”
“RCB said they don’t want good players. They let (Rishabh) Pant and KL (Rahul) go, and he (Jacks) played well for them. It’s not easy for any batter to score a hundred. The RCB fans will be extremely disappointed. We have seen from yesterday (Day 1) that RCB’s auction planning was bad, and today (Day 2) they went from bad to worse. I believe not taking Jacks is a massive miss,” Kaif added.
In the same discussion, Sanjay Bangar also called RCB’s decision not to use the RTM card for Will Jacks ‘the biggest disappointment’.
“The biggest disappointing factor of RCB’s auction was not using the RTM for Will Jacks. Yes, you got Tim David and Liam Livingstone. However, Will Jacks has the pedigree and could have attacked at the top of the order. He played at No. 3 last year as well. Phil Salt came in place of Faf du Plessis. Virat Kohli will stay there. If Jacks had also played there, it would have been understandable if you had played one of Tim David and Livingstone down the order. If Will Jacks had been in your top four along with Rajat Patidar, this batting order would have been explosive. They might have got the best top four of this IPL but they missed that opportunity,” Bangar concluded.
