Mumbai Indians players attend a training session ahead of the second leg of IPL in Abu Dhabi. Courtesy: Twitter

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) announced on Saturday that head coach Simon Katich has stepped down due to personal reasons. In place of him, director of cricket operations Mike Hesson will take over as head coach till the end of the season.

“Simon Katich has decided to step down from his post as head coach and mainly due to personal reasons. We support his decision.

“Hesson will step in and discharge the duties as head coach until the end of this tournament. Hesson has been coaching NZ team and other teams. Mike will step in until the end of the tournament,” said Rajesh Menon, vice-president and head, Royal Challengers Bangalore in the press conference.

The franchise also said that they have signed Sri Lankan duo of Wanindu Hasaranga and Dushmantha Chameera apart from Singapore’s Tim David as replacement players.

Leg-spinner Hasaranga is a replacement for Australia’s Adam Zampa, who had pulled out of the tournament due to personal reasons. He was impressive in the three-match T20I series against India, taking seven wickets at an economy rate of 5.58.

Chameera replaces Zampa’s country-mate Daniel Sams, who has pulled out along with Kane Richardson. He was the second-highest wicket-taker after Hasaranga, taking four wickets at an economy rate of 5.25.

Tim David comes in place of New Zealand’s Finn Allen, who along with fellow Kiwi Scott Kuggeleijn will be unavailable as they will be on national duty in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

David has represented Singapore in 14 T20Is, scoring 558 runs at an average of 46.5. He amassed 279 runs at a strike-rate of 153.29 for the Hobart Hurricanes in the 2020/21 Big Bash League.

He is currently in England and scored two centuries and a half-century in his last four matches in Surrey’s run to the semi-final in the Royal London One-day Cup.

Meanwhile, the defending champions Mumbai Indians began their first training session at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhai.

The five-time champions took to social media to post videos and pictures of the players and support staff training under lights. Indian members of the squad arrived in Abu Dhabi on Aug.13 and completed their one-week quarantine.

Left-handed batsman Ishan Kishan was seen practising a scoop shot. There was a picture of Director of Cricket Operations Zaheer Khan seen alongside fielding coach James Pamment.

“First day at office in 55 seconds! Turn on your notifications and stay tuned,” captioned the franchise giving a summary of their training in a video on social media.

Earlier, the squad was also seen in a video playing a game of pool volleyball after the end of their quarantine period, with the caption as “Diving straight out of quarantine for a game of Pool Volleyball.” Apart from Kishan, the clip featured Piyush Chawla, Aditya Tare, and Dhawal Kulkarni.

Meanwhile, former India leg-spinner Amit Mishra was among the Delhi Capitals’ (DC) players to arrive in Dubai.

“A few members of the Delhi Capitals’ squad, which included leg-spinner Amit Mishra, all-rounder Lalit Yadav, domestic players Lukman Meriwala, Manimaran Siddharth, Ripal Patel and Vishnu Vinod arrived in Dubai on Aug.2, 2021 for the remainder of the IPL 2021 season. The players will stay in quarantine following BCCI and IPL protocols,” said Delhi Capitals in a statement.