Happy with Josh Hazlewood return, but RCB have a quality squad: Assistant coach

India Today

26-05-2025

RCB assistant coach Malolan Rangarajan has said that while the team is happy with the return of Josh Hazlewood, he believes the squad has enough talent this time around. Hazlewood has missed the last two games for RCB as he was nursing a shoulder issue and returned late from Australia. The pacer has arrived just ahead of the playoffs for Bengaluru as they aim for their first title in the IPL. Speaking at the pre-match press conference before the LSG game, Rangarajan said that during Hazlewood's absence, Lungi Ngidi stepped for the team and they have Nuwan Thushara waiting in the wings. The RCB assistant coach also said they have a good Indian pacer in the form of Rasikh Salam. advertisement"There is no doubt about how good Josh Hazlewood is as a player and what great impact he has had for us, but it is also important to remember in his absence, we played 2 games, we won 1 and we lost another, Lungi Ngidi had filled in very well and we believe in the strength of the whole squad, there is Nuwan Thushara who is chomping at the pits and even people forget that we have a very talented Indian pace bowler in Rasikh Salam, so while we are very happy about Hazlewood coming back to the squad, we and everybody needs to remember the quality that is existing within our playing squad," said Rangarajan.
Hazlewood has 18 wickets in 10 matches for RCB this season. 'Not going to dwell on the past game'advertisementRCB's last game in Lucknow saw them collapse from 173 for 4 to 189 all-out while chasing 230 against SRH. Rangarajan said that they have had honest conversations and won't be dwelling on the result. The RCB assistant coach said that they have hopefully addressed the issues ahead of the LSG game. "After every game, we sit down, we have our honest conversations, constructive feedback. What we need to understand and where Phil Salt is coming from is, when you are chasing 230, all you can ask from a batting unit is to set it up in a way where we are looking to chase 60 runs of the last five overs. And beyond that, whatever happened, we certainly could have done better. But again, I am not going to dwell into the result of what happened. We could have reacted better. We had a few issues that we had to deal with.""As far as what came out of the meeting, hopefully you will see that on the ground tomorrow. Like we had a few challenges in M Chinnaswamy Stadium when we played the first few games. I think we have thought of ways we can address what had gone wrong," said Rangarajan. RCB will face LSG on May 27 and a win will help them to reach the top two. Must Watch
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