Cameron Green, the Aussie all-rounder, turned out to be the most prominent news headline in the IPL auction held on Tuesday.
This came following his emergence as the most expensive cricketer to be sold on the final day of the auction as he was purchased by the Kolkata Knight Riders for a staggering amount of 25.20 crores at the Etihad Centre in Abu Dhabi.
The auction for Green quickly turned into a battle between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings. The Australian cricketer is the former player of Royal Challengers Bengaluru. At the time of the auction, KKR possessed the largest wallet among all teams with 64.30 crores, and the second-largest wallet was of CSK with 43.40 crores. It was clear that the two teams possessed financial power because the auction heated up quickly before being won by KKR.
Under this agreement, Cameron Green has become the third most costly player in the history of IPL auctions. Rishabh Pant was purchased for INR 27 crores, while Shreyas Iyer earlier fetched INR 26.75 crores; these two were more costly than Cameron Green. With this purchase, Cameron Green has also become the most costly all-rounder player to be bought in an IPL auction. Additionally, he also became the costliest overseas player to be bought at an IPL auction.
Another common bidding war situation came up when Venkatesh Iyer’s name was take into consideration. Like last year, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders went head to head over the Madhya Pradesh all-rounder. This common situation took a lot of memories down the memory lane as paddles went up on either side of the table. However, RCB got Venkatesh Iyer at a cost of 7 crores.
Kolkata Knight Riders were not done with their aggressive actions in the auction, with the team returning Sri Lanka’s Matheesha Pathirana. Pathirana, who has been consistently successful in the final overs, joined KKR for a whopping 18 crores. This move depicted that the team is planning to boost their bowling team.
Chennai Super Kings made news too, particularly due to their aggressive investment in young, uncapped Indian players. Prashant Veer and Kartik Sharma were bought by CSK for a record-breaking 14.20 crores each, which is more than 47 times their base rate of 30 lakhs. Both of these players now hold the record of being jointly most expensive uncapped players in the history of IPL auctions.
The mini-auction has a total of 369 players to choose from, with the 10 franchises needing to fill a total of 77 slots. The total number of players a franchise can hold in a team is not more than 25, with eight being overseas players. The mini-auction will be a very important event for the determination of team combinations for the next season.
A few leading players were auctioned at or around the base price. David Miller was bought by the Delhi Capitals for 2 crores, which is his base price. Jacob Duffy was snapped up by the Royal Challengers Bengaluru for 2 crores, and Anrich Nortje was bought by the Lucknow Super Giants for 2 crores. The Rajasthan Royals bought Ravi Bishnoi for 7.2 crores, and Akeal Hosein was acquired by the Chennai Super Kings for 2 crores.
Other key picks would be Ashok Sharma, who was transferred to Gujarat Titans for 90 lakh rupees when his base price was 30 lakh rupees. Kartik Tyagi was transferred to Kolkata Knight Riders for 30 lakh rupees, and Naman Tiwari was transferred to Lucknow Super Giants for 1 crore rupees. Wanindu Hasaranga was transferred to Lucknow Super Giants for 2 crores of rupees. Another surprising pick would again be Auqib Dar, who was transferred to Delhi Capitals for 8.4 crores of rupees when his base price was 30 lakh rupees.
Other new buys include Quinton de Kock for 1 crore for Mumbai Indians, Ben Duckett for 2 crore for Delhi Capitals, and Finn Allen for 2 crore for Kolkata Knight Riders. Mukul Choudhary signed for 2.6 crore for Lucknow Super Giants, and a new pick for KKR is Tejaswi Singh for 3 crore.
Some of the players who have been nominated for the Indian Premier League include Jake Fraser McGurk, Prithvi Shaw, Devon Conway, Sarfaraz Khan, Atharva Taide, Anmolpreet Singh, Abhinav Tejrana, Abhinav Manohar, Yash Dhull, Arya Desai, Matt Henry, Akash Deep, Shivam Mavi, Gerald Coetzee, Spencer Johnson, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Rahul Chahar, Maheesh Theekshana, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Raj Limbani, Simarjeet Singh, Gus Atkinson, Rachin Ravindra, Liam Livingstone, Wiaan Mulder, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Mahipal Lomror, Eden Tom, Tanush Kotian, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, KS Bharat, Rahmanullah.
The auction day brought out the importance of franchises attempting to find the correct mix of marquee players and clever draft picks as they aim to finalize a roster strong enough to contend in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League.
