How a gripping first day unfolded
An open IPL auction, which lived up to its hype on the first day with too many twists and turns. Altogether, 10 players were sold for more than Rs 100 million for the first time in the history of the IPL.
Mumbai Indians retained 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 a bidding war with Mumbai to eat up their purse and Mumbai finally bought Kishan for a whopping price of Rs150 million. They still need to buy a minimum of 11 players and have a purse of Rs278.5 million 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 pattern of bidding for the same core of players who had played for them and went big on getting Deepak Chahar by spending Rs140 million on him.
But for me, the team which bid smart was Delhi Capitals. They already had Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Axar Patel and Anrich Nortje and added David Warner as an opener and Mitchell Marsh - both of whom had a terrific T20 World cup last year. Moreover, they got Mustafizur Rahman to replace Kasigo Rabada. They also got Kuldeep Yadav and Kamlesh Nagarkoti and most importantly snatched Shardul Thakur from Chennai.
Kolkata Knight Riders retained Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and got Pat Cummins at less than Rs100 million, for whom they had spent Rs150 million 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 spent a lot on Nitish Rana and now have a purse of just Rs126.5 million to pick a minimum of seven players.
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 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.
Royal Challengers Bangalore who retained Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell and Mohammed Siraj spent Rs105 million on Harshal Patel whose base price was Rs150 million and could have retained him instead of dishing out the the extra Rs90 million on him. They also went heavy on buying Sri Lanka allrounder Wanindu Hasranga. They got Josh Hazelwood, but the smart pick for me was Dinesh Karthik who I believe could be potential captain.
Damp squib
Sunrisers Hyderabad, who retained Kane Williamson as captain ended up with a damp squib. They bought Nicolas Pooran for a high price although he had a very poor IPL for Punjab Kings last year. They kept faith in Bhubaneswar Kumar, who looks a pale shadow of the ‘Bhuvi’ we know and T. Natrajan who’s just come out of injury. Rajasthan Royals, who had retained Sanju Samson as their captain along with Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal, got Yuzvendra Chahal had a steal of a deal for less than Rs60 million and Prasidh Krishna who — the Man of the Series in the recently concluded West Indies series. Moreover, they got Trent Boult and also Shemron Hetmyer and Ravichandran Ashwin.
Lucknow Super Giants, who have KL Rahul as captain along with Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi as their leggie, got Quinton de Kock from Mumbai Indians’ grasp along with Jason Holder. They also got Avesh Khan for Rs 100 million as their premier fast bowler along with Mark Wood. Gujarat Titans, who have Hardik Pandya as captain along with Rashid Khan and Shubman Gill, vied hard to get Kiwi pacer Lockie Ferguson. They also got Mohammed Shami and Jason Roy.
Cricket enthusiast Anis Sajan is the Vice-Chairman of Danube Group