IPL 2021: Josh Philippe Pulls Out Of The Tournament, RCB Names a Replacement

The Royal Challengers Bangalore have signed uncapped New Zealand wicketkeeper-batsman Finn Allen as a like-for-like replacement for Josh Philippe who has made himself “unavailable” for the entire IPL 2021. Finn has featured in 12 First-class games for New Zealand and scored three half-centuries.

The 23-year-old Philippe had made his IPL debut in the UAE last year, playing five games and scoring 78 runs for RCB.

“Royal Challengers Bangalore have signed up New Zealand wicketkeeper batsman Finn Allen as replacement for Josh Philippe who will be unavailable for the entire season,” an IPL release said.

The 21-year-old had smashed 512 runs in 11 innings to emerge as the top run-scorer in the Super Smash League this year.

Finn Allen’s Stats in Super Smash 2020:

• Innings – 11.
• Runs – 512.
• Average – 56.89.
• Strike Rate – 193.94.
• Fifties – 6.

Finn Allen replaces Josh Philippe for #IPL2021.

We regret to inform that Josh Philippe has made himself unavailable for IPL 2021 due to personal reasons. As a result, we have picked an exciting top order batsman in Finn Allen.#PlayBold #Classof2021 pic.twitter.com/DaasJ58ngk

— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) March 10, 2021

“Finn had a base price of Rs 20 lakh equivalent to that of Josh Philippe. It will be Finn’s debut IPL season this year when he plays for Royal Challengers Bangalore,” the release added.

During the IPL player auction in February this year, RCB bought 8 players, increasing their squad to 22 players. With a purse of 35.90 crore, the Virat Kohli-led side made two huge purchases in the IPL 2021 auction. RCB bought Kyle Jamieson for Rs. 15 crore and Glenn Maxwell for Rs. 14.25 Crore.

RCB Full Squad For IPL 2021

Virat Kohli (C), AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Joshua Phillipe, Pavan Deshpande, Shahbaz Ahmed, Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson, Kyle Jamieson, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Sachin Baby, Rajat Patidar, Mohammed Azharudeen, Suyash Prabhudesai and Kona Srikar Bharat.