On 4 January 2018, Indian skipper Virat Kohli wrote history by becoming the first ever player to be retained by an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise (Royal Challengers Bangalore) for an amount way higher than set by the IPL (INR 15 crore) for the first player retention.
Virat has been a part of Royal Challengers Bangalore since the inception of the league and is the team’s captain – on and off the field. Other than Virat, RCB brought South African batsman AB de Villiers and uncapped batsman Sarfaraz Khan in player retention.
Kohli will receive Rs 17 crore from the RCB for the 2018 season.
A proven performer for RCB, Pawan Negi has a big fan in our Bold Panel- Preetham! Watch him welcome Pawan back to the Bold #PlayBold #BidForBold pic.twitter.com/GsSEexthPm
— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) January 28, 2018
On Saturday and Sunday, when RCB went to pick players for the mega cash-rich league, their solo focus was to bring the best players from across the globe into their team.
Hyderabad’s #TeamIndia International, @m_siraj13, has a special message from our Challengers. #BidForBold #PlayBold pic.twitter.com/v787henJzK
— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) January 28, 2018
The team managed to grab the high-profiled players like Brendon McCullum, Nathan Coulter-Nile, South African wicket-keeper batsman Quinton de Kock, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj and Indian spinner Yuzvendra Chahal.
There you have it, Challengers- the newest ensemble of the Bold Squad that we’ve all been waiting for! #BidForBold #PlayBold pic.twitter.com/R6TaAbbJq4
— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) January 28, 2018
Full list of players brought by RCB:
Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Kulwant Khejroliya, Tim Southee, Chris Woakes, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Parthiv Patel, Umesh Yadav, Brendon McCullum, Quinton de Kock, Mandeep Singh, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Yuzvendra Chahal, Aniket Choudhary, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Manan Vohra, Colin de Grandhomme, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan