BENGALURU: Controversial pacer Yash Dayal will not join the Royal Challengers Bengaluru squad for the upcoming IPL but he remains contracted to the squad, the franchise's Director of Cricket Mo Bobat said on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old Dayal, who is facing two cases of alleged sexual exploitation, has not played any competitive cricket since appearing in the IPL 2025 final that RCB won to be crowned champions for the first time.
"So just to confirm that Yash will not be joining up with the squad. As you know, he is going through a personal situation currently, and just to clarify, we've been very supportive of Yash to date, and that's reflected in the opportunity to either retain or release players," said Bobat in the season-opening press meet here on Tuesday.
"We wanted to retain him, and he remains under contract and will continue, you know, in the short term, foreseeable to remain under contract," he added.
Dayal, who got married recently, has been accused of sexual exploitation by two women, one of them a minor teenager.
Bobat said the franchise has kept the line of communication open with him.
"We are communicating with him regularly, you know, I spoke to him earlier today as well. But it has been decided that it is not in his best interest, or in the franchise's best interest, for him to join up with us at this point. We won't be making any other further comments on that at this stage. But he obviously retains our support, he remains under contract, and we'll continue to speak to him as he goes through his personal situation," he explained.
Bobat said they have enough depth in their ranks to cover for Dayal.
"If we were thinking of domestic replacements, if that's what we were looking to do, then I mentioned Rasik (Salam), Abhinandan Singh and Mangesh (Yadav). There's three very good options. All three of those have had excellent preparatory camps so far. So we've kept all our options open. I enjoyed scouting Mangesh in the off-season, prior to the auction," he said.
Nonetheless, Bobat admitted that Dayal, who was the joint highest wicket-taker for RCB in the 2024 season, would be missed.
"It's obviously a blow, losing a player like Yash. He's been an important part for us for the last couple of years, but we're very confident in the options we've got in the squad," he said.
Bobat also hoped that pacer Josh Hazlewood will be able to join the squad at the earliest after completing his recovery process.