Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) player AB de Villiers made a stunning confession after RCB became the IPL 2025 champions. The cricketer, during a chat with former India cricketer-turned-broadcaster Abhinav Mukund, said he was overpaid."I was sitting next to AB de Villiers and he told me something that I don't think any legend in the IPL has said.

But he genuinely meant it; he said it from a place of emotion. He said, 'I was overpaid'," Mukund revealed."'I'm overpaid, I thought I was overpaid because I feel like all of the other elements that you're talking about, right? Where you're able to buy so many other superstar players, all those match winners you're talking about. The highest amount of money that they spent on was for someone like a Phil Salt or Josh Hazlewood. They didn't cross 15 (Rs 15 crore),'" de Villiers had told Mukund, as revealed by the latter.De Villiers, who had an 11-year stint with RCB, was retained by the franchise for Rs 7.50 crore and Rs 11 crore in 2014 and 2018, respectively.While RCB did not spend Rs 12.50 crore on any player at the auction, they did retain Virat Kohli for Rs 21 crore. They also went all out for Venkatesh Iyer at Rs 23.50 crore, but Kolkata Knight Riders won the bid for Rs 23.75 crore.Not getting Venkatesh later turned out to be a blessing for RCB, as he failed to fire throughout the season, scoring only 142 runs in 11 matches in IPL 2025."In hindsight, they must be thinking, thank God we didn't go all the way for Venkatesh Iyer. Because their last losing bid was Venkatesh Iyer. And the next three buys were Josh Hazlewood, Jitesh Sharma and I think Phil Salt. Those were the next three buys. And they saved so much in the bank for day two when Bhuvneshwar Kumar came in," said Mukund.