'Thought IPL 2025 would be called off, you don't expect IND-PAK conflict...': RCB were quite keen 'to send players back'
IPL 2025: RCB Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat, said the franchise were quite keen to send all players back home after the tournament got suspended for one week.
After being suspended for one week, the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season is all set to resume on Saturday, May 17 with the match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Last week, the 18th edition of the T20 tournament was suspended for one week due to the rising tensions between India and Pakistan at the border after the Pahalgam terror attack.
However, a ceasefire declaration paved the way for the BCCI to announce the resumption of the tournament. Ahead of the fixture against KKR, RCB Director of Cricket Mo Bobat opened up on the suspension of the tournament and how his franchise ensured that overseas players felt comfortable returning to India.
The IPL 2025 season got suspended just hours before the fixture between RCB and Lucknow Super Giants in Lucknow. Mo Bobat has now revealed how he thought the tournament would not resume anytime soon as no one was expecting the conflict between India and Pakistan to be sorted out this quickly.
He also said that the franchise wanted to ensure all players travel back home to get some sort of break.
“Our initial impression was that the competition would be called off for a period of time. You don't expect a conflict like that to resolve itself, as it did. We were quite keen to send the players home because actually (it was) a good chance for them to have a break. So for the Indian players, that's relatively straightforward,” Mo Bobat said in a video posted on the official YouTube handle of RCB.
“With the overseas players, myself and (head coach) Andy (Flower) sat them down and spoke to them all and said, 'Look, what is your preference?' and a lot of them said, 'Look, we'd like to go home because it's a period of uncertainty but were very committed, and if we need to come back we'll come back,” he added.
'Day before IPL suspension quite chaotic'
Mo Bobat also revealed how he and the other management members felt when the tournament was suspended for one week. He said that the entire squad was watching the game between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals in Dharamsala when it was stopped midway due to tensions between India and Pakistan.
"Yes, quite chaotic. Tried to stay quite calm and tried to get as much information from the BCCI as possible and try to communicate with clarity. It was a pretty eventful evening. We practiced the day before the Lucknow game. And, then, actually on the bus on the way back, a lot of the guys were watching the game on their phones, the Punjab vs Delhi Capitals game," said Bobat.
"And then we saw the floodlights had gone out and the players had come off the field. We were not too sure what was going on, and only when we got back to the hotel we kind of got a proper sense of what was happening," he added.
RCB are currently at the second spot in the points table with 16 points. The franchise are favourites to qualify for the playoffs. Most of the overseas stars, such as Phil Salt, Jacob Bethell, Romario Shephard, Tim David and Liam Livingstone, have arrived in India for the tournament resumption. Josh Hazlewood is expected to touch base by the end of the next week.
