Made a conscious effort to keep the core of the group together: Katich

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) started off well in the Indian Premier League (IPL) last season, but their campaign fell apart in the back-end of the tournament and they eventually crashed out in the playoffs. However, head coach Simon Katich feels that there were a number of positives from the previous season, especially the way young Indian players like Devdutt Padikkal and Washington Sundar performed. 

The former Australia batsman also revealed that they tried to hang on to their core group of players this season and also kept a close watch on the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy season, from where they picked up Mohammed Azharuddeen, who smashed a 37-ball hundred in the tournament. "We made a conscious effort to try and keep the core of the group together and we felt in the last season there were a lot of positives. For the first times in a number of years we got to the playoffs," said Katich. 

"The other part was that we did back a lot of young Indian talent and when I say that we backed the young kid Padikkal at top of the order. He had never played IPL, he didn't let us down he was brilliant," he further said.

"Washington Sundar was outstanding and has now played a lot of cricket for India both T20 and Test. We also backed Siraj and Saini with the ball," Katich added.

Overall, Katich seems to be happy with the squad he has at his disposal. "We are really happy with the squad, we have picked a lot of Indian talent in the auction, we did a lot of scouting. We are happy with the mix we got. Dan Christian is a very experienced player, Maxwell, and Zampa too, so we have got a lot of experience also," said Katich.

RCB face Mumbai Indians (MI) in the season opener in Chennai on April 9.