The idea of joining the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) franchise was floated with him by by Virat Kohli during the limited-overs leg of India’s tour of Australia last year, Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has revealed.
“We had been texting a fair bit. We obviously caught up. We chatted after the ODI and T20I series in Australia. He talked to me about potentially playing for RCB. If I got the opportunity, he said ‘we would love to have you’. But obviously, there was an auction,” Maxwell said in a video tweeted by RCB.
“He said it would be wonderful to have you. He floated the idea back even then. There was a long process in work. Thankfully, I am playing for RCB now,” he added.
Maxwell was signed by the RCB for a whopping Rs 14.25 crore in the IPL 2021 mini-auctions, held in February 18 in Chennai.
Earlier, RCB skipper Kohli had said that Australian spinner Adam Zampa handed the franchise cap to Maxwell even before the auction was held.
Commenting on the incident, the 32-year-old all-rounder said that it would have looked a bit silly if RCB had not been able to acquire his services but, is now happy with the way things went.
“The day of the auction, it was at night time in New Zealand. We were training while in quarantine in New Zealand. Adam Zampa had his RCB hat in his bag, so he took it out and made sure we had a photo. He sent it to Virat and said ‘Let’s get it over the line. Congratulations I have already given him his first cap!”
“That was before the auction, so it all happened pretty well. It would have looked pretty silly if it didn’t work out that way. He put the picture on afterwards but we took the photo before the auction. Virat said you guys are idiots but in a lovely way,” he added.
Despite having a lackluster outing in the previous few seasons of the lucrative league, Maxwell had a great start to the ongoing edition as he played a crucial 28-ball 39-run knock in RCB’s campaign opener against Mumbai Indians on April 9.