An open IPL auction which lived up to it’s hype on the first day with too many twist and turns. Altogether, 10 players were sold for more than Rs 10 crores in the first time in the history of IPL [1 INR = .049 AED, 1 crore = 10 million].
With 10 teams trying to build their teams from almost scratch in this year’s auction as compared to eight in every auction, it was always going to be tough to get all the players the franchises wanted to buy.
Let’s start with Mumbai Indians: they had retained four players in captain Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Keiron Pollard. It was quite obvious they would go for Ishan Kishan but the other franchises played smart in getting into bidding war with Mumbai Indians and eat up their purse and Mumbai finally bought Kishan for a whopping price of 15 crores. They were like playing the game of wait-and-watch and in the end, bought two more players on the first day, which had a South African Under-19 player Dewald Brevis and Indian pacer Basil Thampi. They still need to buy a minimum of 11 players and have a purse of 27.85 left, but I believe they have their work cut out on the second day.
Chennai Super Kings, who had retained MS Dhoni as their skipper, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja and Moeen Ali followed their same pattern of bidding for the same core of players which had played for them and went big on getting Deepak Chahar by spending 14 crores on him. They also got in veterans Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa and kept faith in Rookie fast bowler KM Asif and Tushar Despande. They could not get Shardul Thakur and Josh Hazlewood and will have to hope they get some good fast bowlers to strengthen their pace attack to support Deepak Chahar.
But for me, the team which bid smart was Delhi Capitals. They already had four good players in Rishab Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Axar Patel and Anrich Nortje and added David Warner as an opener and Mitchell Marsh - both of whom had a terrefic T20 World cup last year. Moreover, they got Mustafizur Rahman from Bangladesh to replace Kasigo Rabada whom they could not buy. They also got Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav and pacer Kamlesh Nagarkoti and most importantly snatched Shardul Thakur from Chennai Super Kings’ plan.
Kolkata Knight Riders had retained Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and got Pat Cummins at less than 10 crores, for whom they had spent last year 15 crores last time. However, their biggest buy of the day was getting Shreyas Iyer - whom a lot of franchises were targeting as a potential captain. One felt they spend a lot on Nitish Rana and now have a purse of just 12.65 crores to pick a minimum of seven players. They look heavy in bowling but their batting on paper looks thin.
The surprise package, for me, was Punjab Kings who had just retained Mayank Agarwal and Arshdeep Singh but got Shikhar Dhawan - who could be their potential captain. They also got in Jonny Bairstow a wicketkeeper-batsman as well as a genuine fast bowler in Kagiso Rabada. They have got two Indian spinners in Rahul Chahar and Harpreet Brar and a dashing finisher in Shahrukh Khan, who also played for them last season.
Royal Challengers Bangalore who had retained Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell and Mohammed Siraj spent 10.5 crores the Harshal Patel whose base price was 1.5 crores and could have retained him instead of dishing out the the extra nine crores on him. They also went heavy on buying Sri Lanka allrounder Wanindu Hasranga . They did get Josh Hazelwood to support Siraj in the fast bowling department, but the smart pick for me was Dinesh Karthik who I believe could be their potential captain.
Sunrisers Hyderabad, who had retained Kane Williamson as their captain along with hard-hitting batsman Abdul Samad and pacer Imran Malik, had a damp squib in spite of having a high purse. They ended up buying Nicolas Pooran with a high price as their wicketkeeper-batter, who had a very poor IPL for Punjab Kings last year. They have kept faith in Bhubaneswar Kumar, who looks a pale shadow of the old ‘Bhuvi’ we know and T. Natrajan who has just come out injury.
Rajasthan Royals, who had retained Sanju Samson as their captain along with Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal, got Yuzvendra Chahal had a steal deal for less than six crores and Prasidh Krishna who - was the Man of the Series in the recently concluded west Indies series. Moreover, they got Trent Boult whom Mumbai wanted and also Shemron Hetmyer as the finisher and Ravichandran Ashwin as an experienced spinner.
First appearance
New team Lucknow Super Giants, who had KL Rahul as their captain along with Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi as their leggie, got Quinton de Kock from Mumbai Indians’ grasp along with Jason Holder who is now the No.1 allrounder in the world . They also got Avesh Khan for 10 crores as their premier fast bowler along with Mark wood. However, the purse they have got left is just 6.90 crores to fill in the rest seven players.
The other new team, Gujarat Titans which has Hardik Pandya as their captain along with Rashid Khan and Shubman Gill, went hard to get kiwi pacer Lockie Ferguson. They also got Mohammed Shami to support him in the pace attack and got Jason Roy to open with Rahul. They look thin on spinners and have a budget of just for crores to fill in the gap.
It’s going to be a gripping second day as to how the 10 franchises get their buys tomorrow and make a team - which can be a force to reckon with in the best franchise cricket league in the world.
- Cricket enthusiast Anis Sajan is the Vice-Chairman of Danube Group
