Curran commands highest price for overseas player at IPL auction
Sam Curran fetched the highest price for an overseas player at the Indian Premier League auction after being drafted by Kings XI Punjab for around one million US dollars.
The 20-year-old all-rounder only made his England debut earlier this year, but has significantly burnished his reputation with a series of plucky displays across seven Tests and two one-day internationals.
He was England’s player of the series during their 4-1 win over world number one Test side India, which would have gone a long way towards convincing Kings XI to pay 7.2 crore rupees (£788,000) for his services.
Curran was one of five English qualified players to be signed by a franchise yesterday, with Jonny Bairstow, Joe Denly, Harry Gurney and Liam Livingstone also earning their first IPL deals. England’s limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan was a late entrant into the auction, but went unsold, as did international team-mates Alex Hales, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood and Chris Jordan.
It was reported that several franchises were dissuaded from swooping for high-profile England stars because of their limited availability as they build towards the World Cup.
Next year’s edition is set to start on March 29 and run until May 19, but England’s ODI players will report for international duty on April 25.
Curran, who has yet to be capped in the Twenty20 format at international level and whose elder brother Tom was part of the Kolkata Knight Riders squad earlier this year, is only on the fringes of the ODI set-up so may yet feature in the entire tournament.
Sunrisers Hyderabad seem unconcernedaboutBairstow’s stay being cut short, though, as this year’s runners-up paid around £245,000 for the wicketkeeper-batsman. The Yorkshireman is one of only three batsmen - alongside Indian pair Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma - to go past 1,000 runs in the ODI format in 2018.
The pair will feature in the world’s most lucrative domestic competition, alongside international team-mates Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, David Willey and Sam Billings - all of whom were retained by their franchises.