Hammer falls for Guptill in IPL auction
White-ball bully Martin Guptill has finally cracked the Indian Premier League auction and the New Zealand opener is understandably delighted.
Guptill was bought for $104,000 by the Kings Xi Punjab at the auction in Bangalore on Monday night – albeit in the second round.
But it represented a personal victory for one of the most destructive batsmen in the limited overs formats.
Guptill’s regular absence from the highest-profiled and richest Twenty20 league over the years has been a mystery.
Even on the back of his stunning 2015 World Cup efforts, Guptill was unwanted when the auctioneer’s hammer came down on the stocks for the 2016 IPL.
He eventually got a gig with the Mumbai Indians as a replacement player for West Indian Lendl Simmons who was injured early in the tournament.
Now the punishing righ-handed batsman, who has been a regular fixture in the Caribbean League, has earned a callup on his own rights.
Guptill is currently sitting out the matches against South Africa in New Zealand with another hamstring strain, but is expected to be back in action soon.
He joins Black Caps fast bowler Matt Henry at Punjab. Henry also went for the base rate of $104,000.
The big winner on the night among the Black Caps was Trent Boult who fetched $1.04m. The leftarmer, in fine form this summer, was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders who ignored his patchy IPL efforts last year.
The Delhi Daredevils paid $208,000 for Corey Anderson while rookie New Zealand fast bowler Lockie Ferguson went for $104,000 to the Rising Pune Supergiants.
Unsold initially, Ferguson was in the final eight players who were requested by the franchises to go back for the last chance saloon, and then was sold as the secondlast auctioned player of the entire day when former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming finally snapped him up.
Fleming had earlier paid a record NZ$3.01m for an overseas player when he splashed out on England’s NZ-born allrounder Ben Stokes, despite the new England vice-captain unlikely to be involved in the whole tournament because of international duties.
Surprisingly there was no interest in New Zealand legspinner Ish Sodhi despite his recent heroics in Australia’s Big Bash.
He was among 14 New Zealanders who failed to get a bite.