Shahbaz Ahmed has been a three-year project for us: Mike Hesson

Indian Premier League is still a few months away but Royal Challengers Bangalore are back in business, putting their players through the grind at monthly camps monitored by their coaches. Despite qualifying for the playoffs, the Faf du Plessis-led side returned a mixed bag last year, though some players are making telling statements with the national squad. Dinesh Karthik’s career has received a second wind, pacer Mohammed Siraj is back after a lull, Harshal Patel is in the mix and Shahbaz Ahmed has earned his maiden India call-up.

In an exclusive chat with TOI, Mike Hesson, director of cricket operations of the Bengaluru-based franchise, spoke about the RCB players in focus, new initiatives, younger talent coming through and the team’s investment in the future. Excerpts:RCB picked Shahbaz Ahmed when he was a relative unknown. How do you trace his progress?Shahbaz has been a three-year project for us.

It is important to realise that players develop at different rates. Our scouting system identified Shahbaz and he had the qualities we were looking for, the fighting characteristic being one of them. He is a multi-skilled player, he wants to get better and has thrived in our environment being surrounded by seasoned and quality players, who were willing to give their time to him.

We are lucky we have a high-quality coaching set-up led by Sanjay Bangar. We spend a lot of time on individual development plans. Often, players can be a bit of a commodity (in the IPL).

You get them for a year and you hope they score some runs and take wickets. We think differently. Once we invest in a player, we want to see them develop and derive a lot of pleasure seeing them play for India.