AB de Villiers and Simon Katich talk during a training session in Dubai. Courtesy Twitter

Mohammad Abdullah, Staff Reporter

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) Australian coach Simon Katich is excited with prospect of having a huge pool of young talented players at his disposal for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL).

RCB have some of the biggest cricket stars in their line-up like Indian captain Virat Kohli, former South African swashbuckling batsman AB de Villiers and South African pacer Dale Steyn, who spearheaded their pace attack for many years.

It is the group of young stars, which excites the coach ahead of the cricket extravaganza, which will be held in the UAE from Sept.19 to Nov.10.

However, the BCCI has not issued the complete fixtures, which has also drawn flak from franchises, with barely a few weeks remaining in kicking off the cricket’s biggest spectacle.

“I noticed there are a lot of young talents in the RCB, who were not playing in the last two season. The big thing now is that If given an opportunity, can they grab it and run away with it,” said Katich in a video posted on RCB’s official Twitter account.

“There are number of guys, who have not played in the IPL as yet but had a wonderful season with their respective domestic teams. It will be interesting to see where they head after this break,” he added.

You can see Mohammed Siraj, who was with Hyderabad Sun Risers and now has been with us for a last couple of years. He is still a young player. Negi is another youngster in the squad who looks very promising. He is still 27 years old only. Anyone under 30 is a young player because to me he still has his best to come,” added Katich.

“Shahabaz Ahmad did very well for Bengal in all formats. He is another talented player. Washington Sundar is obviously going to be current player to look out in T20s. He is just 21.

“Then you got Shivam Dube, who came on the scene last year. When you look with that perspective there are a lot of young players, who are very promising.

“There is Josh Phillipe, an exciting and promising coming from Australia. This is group we are looking forward to work on,” said an optimistic and upbeat Katich.

Commenting on the challenge of keeping players fit in the soaring temperature and humid conditions, Katich said: “The big part is physical side of the thing in this heat. But, we are fortunate to have a very competent supporting staff.

“Players were doing a lot running around during the quarantine period of seven days. We expect a lot guys are going to be in really good physical shape. Boys are going to very well prepared physically,” he added.

All the teams had to complete a mandatory quarantine period of seven days after reaching the UAE to follow the safety protocols. The players were allowed to go out of their hotel rooms only after three negative COVID-19 test.

“The challenge is going to be with cricket skills. These conditions are different because we played in Bangalore on a wicket, which is a high scoring turf.

“Historically the scores here are generally lower. So that will be a challenge, particularly for the batsmen if the conditions are like that,” said a wary Katich.

RCB is a team, which depends heavily on their batting prowess with Kohli, De Villiers and Aaron Finch in their line-up.

“But there are the other players, who might be benefited as ball is expected to spin more here. It will be a different challenge for all the players,” said an optimistic Katich.

England’s Moeen Ali will spearhead the spin department along with Washington, who is an off break bowler as well.

Meanwhile, star batsman De Villiers said: “It was really good and enjoyable to be out there. With no sun, it was a bit blurry in the floodlights. The wicket was bit sticky so it was great challenge. If I could have it my way, I would have wanted my first net session to go like this only after a long time,” De Villiers said in a video after attending the first training session with the team.

RCB started training a few days ago, but South African contingent that consisted of De Villiers, Chris Morris and Steyn was flown in after two days. So their isolation period lasted for a little longer than the rest of the squad.

“When you practice like this you got to go out there and play like this. That is what I am trying to do. I generally look like this after a practice session,” said an exhausted looking De Villiers.

Parthiv Patel said: “He is trying to make sure the wicket-keeping drill and batting drill, both are of equal numbers of balls. He seems to be getting used to it,” said Patel, who is also a wicket-keeper.

RCB are playing with three specialist wicket-keepers – De Villiers, Patel and Phillipe.