Kohli was keen to have Steyn after Bangalore sign him for R4m

Cape Town - Royal Challengers Bangalore coach Mike Hesson revealed that Indian captain Virat Kohli was keen on having Proteas fast bowler Dale Steyn in their squad.

Steyn initially found no buyers before Bangalore bought the Proteas speedster for 200 lakh (R4 million).

The 36-year-old has two previous stints with Bangalore, including last year when he came in as a replacement and only played two games before suffering his own injury.

Following the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction on Thursday, coach Hesson was asked over Steyn's late buy.

"We knew we wanted Steyn but we knew if we put a bid on him early, it might have gone up to three or four crore, which would have had flow-on effects," he said, as quoted by Cricinfo.

"I probably exchanged a couple of hundred messages with Virat for a couple of hours. I think he thought we went to sleep in the middle for a couple of hours as well, but he was well aware of what our planning was. He was keen at the end, as we were, to get Udana and Steyn."

Steyn has played 92 IPL matches and has taken 96 wickets at an average of 24.73.

The South African is currently in Australia with the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League, however, he is still injured with a side strain.

Hesson also revealed that their signing of Australian opening batsman Aaron Finch was to put less pressure on Kohli and former Proteas star batsman AB de Villiers.

De Villers was retained by Bangalore, which has been his IPL franchise since 2011. 

Meanwhile, Bangalore will also become the 'home' of Proteas all-rounder Chris Morris in next year's 13 edition of the IPL.

Morris was caught in a bidding war as Bangalore bought him for a staggering 10 crore (R20 million).

Bangalore, who finished at the bottom of the IPL standings last year, have never won a trophy.

Bangalore's full IPL squad for 2020:

Virat Kohli, Moeen Ali, Yuzvendra Chahal, Parthiv Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Pawan Negi, Devdutt Padikkal, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, Navdeep Saini, AB de Villiers, Aaron Finch, Dale Steyn, Shabaz Nadeem, Kane Richardson, Joshua Philippe, Pavan Deshpande, Chris Morris, Isuru Udana

- Compiled by Lynn Butler