“We also need to go out and recruit some players”: David Saker opens up on changing Melbourne Renegades squad in BBL 12 after a disappointing BBL 11

Melbourne Renegades have struggled in BBL 11, and the head coach David Saker has already talked about changing players in BBL 12.

Melbourne Renegades’ struggle in the BBL 11 has been in front of everyone. After winning the title in BBL 8, the Renegades have been really poor in all the seasons. They tried to go with a lot of young guns in their side, and this move did not prove successful for them. In this season, they have managed to win just three of their 12 games, and they are virtually out of the tournament.

The Renegades average just 128 runs with the bat this season. They have scored 125 or fewer runs four times this season, whereas they have breached the total of 155 runs just once.

“It hasn’t been good enough, there’s no doubt, we can’t shy away from that,” head coach David Saker said.

BBL 11: David Saker insists changes in Melbourne Renegades for BBL 12

A lot of players of the Renegades are getting out of contract next season. Saker insists that the club would want to recruit some important players for the next season.

“There’s quite a lot of players on our list that aren’t contracted next year so we’ve got some meetings,” Saker said.

“We also need to go out and recruit some players and obviously after the three years we’ve had, the performances aren’t really good enough, so we’re going to have to get some players in.”

The Renegades have been unable to rope in brilliant overseas players as well. Their cross-town rivals, Melbourne Stars on the other hand have some start recruits. However, Saker has said that they want to recruit players who can play for the whole season from next time.

“Overseas players will play a big role (but) we don’t know what’s happening there next year, that could be a draft system or get your own again,” Saker said.

“One of the things we really wanted to do as an organization – it didn’t work out – but we wanted to get players in that could play the whole tournament.”

“If you get a guy like Andre Russell for 14 games, (he’s) going to have a pretty big impact.”

“But majority of the time you can only get him in for three or four.”

Despite the poor performances, the Renegades still have an outside chance to qualify for the playoffs. They will face the Hobart Hurricanes in their next game on 18 January 2022.