"Vijay Mallya Said Nobody Is Touching...": India Great Reveals His IPL Bid Tale

Spin legend Anil Kumble, who achieved stratospheric heights in cricket in national colours while also plying his trade in the Indian Premier League (IPL), shared memories from the time when he was signed on to feature for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) by former owner Vijay Mallya in the 2008 auction. In the inaugural IPL auction, Kumble went under the hammer after he was not included in the initial list of icon players. Batting talisman and present India head coach, Rahul Dravid, featured in the list of the RCB's icon players, ahead of Kumble, who was nicknamed 'Jumbo' during his playing days.

Kumble, who holds the record for scalping all ten wickets in a single innings in Test cricket alongside England's Jim Laker and New Zealand's Ejaz Patel, was picked up by the RCB at his base price after Mallya insisted at the auction that 'nobody' was to touch him as "he's my Bangalore boy".

"Yeah I mean it was one of those things where I was the captain of India in the Test and for some reason I was not a part of the icon list so I was a part of the auction. Which I obviously didn't participate in but my name was in the auction list. I remember somebody telling me that as soon as my name came up it is not how it is like now when my name came up Mr Vijay Mallya just stood up and said he's my Bangalore boy. Nobody is touching him and that was the end of any other bid coming. I think that was the base price that I was bought at and there was no auction dynamics that you see today. So that was what I was told there were no (other buyers) because the owner just stood up and said no way, no way he is going anywhere else other than Bangalore," Kumble said during a heart-to-heart chat with Ravichandran Ashwin on the latter's