IPL teams open coffers to get big players

Mohammed Rumman Khan | NT

England’s Liam Livingstone became the most expensive foreign player in this season’s IPL auction at Rs 11.50 crore while Mumbai Indians, purely based on leap of faith, paid a whopping Rs 8 crore for an injured Jofra Archer despite his unavailability for the 2022 edition of the IPL.

The two-day IPL auction ended on Sunday with Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings predictably making the hefty pay-outs with bigger purses in store while Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals now look formidable on batting front but slightly short in bowling arsenal.

The teams went big on current India players and largely based their decision on the form players from overseas with more focus on fast bowlers, not caring about reputations as the likes of Steve Smith, Aaron Finch, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma found out.

Farewell, ‘Mr. IPL’ Suresh Raina

After going unsold on the first day, the veteran allrounder didn’t find himself in the list of 69 players. Raina is one of the leading run-scorers of the tournament. Known as ‘Mr. IPL’, he has scored 5528 runs in 205 IPL games and is currently the 4th leading rungetter in the IPL. He has 1 century and 39 fifties to his credit. Suresh Raina’s surprising exit from the auctions will also end his long association with Chennai Super Kings.

RCB fans can say ‘Ee Sala Cup Namde’

Royal Challengers Bangalore were one of the teams looking for a new captain going into the mega auction. Virat Kohli stepped down from the captaincy at the end of the last season. And they bagged experienced former South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis for Rs 7 crore on day 1 as one of the prime candidates to lead the side. They will be happy with their squad. They can put out an XI that has plenty of quality bowling options and have a batting lineup that runs deep-ish too. They also have the likes of Finn Allen and Sherfane Rutherford as back-ups, as well as David Willey.

TEAMS

Royal Challengers Bangalore
Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Mohammed Siraj, Harshal Patel, Faf du Plessis, Wanindu Hasaranga, Dinesh Karthik, Josh Hazlewood, Shahbaz Ahamad, Anuj Rawat, Akash Deep, Mahipal Lomror, Finn Allen, Sherfane Rutherford, Jason Behrendorff, Suyash Prabhudessai, Chama Milind, Aneeshwar Gautam, Karn Sharma, Siddharth Kaul, Luvnith Sisodia, David Willey.

Chennai Super Kings
MS Dhoni, Moeen Ali, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Ambati Rayudu, Dwayne Bravo, Robin Uthappa, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Maheesh Theekshana, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Simarjeet Singh, Devon Conway, Dwaine Pretorius, Mitchell Santner, Adam Milne, Subhranshu Senapati, Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Solanki, C Hari Nishaanth, N Jagadeesan, Chris Jordan, K Bhagath Varma.

Mumbai Indians
Rohit Sharma , Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Dewald Brevis, Basil Thampi, Murugan Ashwin, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, N Tilak Varma, Sanjay Yadav, Jofra Archer, Daniel Sams, Tymal Mills, Tim David, Riley Meredith, Mohd Arshad Khan, Anmolpreet Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Rahul Buddhi, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar, Aryan Juyal, Fabian Allen.

Punjab Kings
Mayank Agarwal, Arshdeep Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, Rahul Chahar, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Ishan Porel, Liam Livingstone, Odean Smith, Sandeep Sharma, Raj Angad Bawa, Rishi Dhawan, Prerak Mankad, Vaibhav Arora, Writtick Chatterjee, Baltej Dhanda, Ansh Patel, Nathan Ellis, Atharva Taide, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Benny Howell.

Sunrisers Hyderabad
Kane Williamson, Umran Malik, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar, Nicholas Pooran, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Priyam Garg, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Kartik Tyagi, Shreyas Gopal, Jagadeesha Suchith, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Romario Shepherd, Sean Abbott, R Samarth, Shashank Singh, Saurabh Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Glenn Phillips, Fazalhaq Farooqi.

Kolkata Knight Riders
Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy, Nitish Rana, Pat Cummins, Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Mavi, Sheldon Jackson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Rasikh Dar, Baba Indrajith, Chamika Karunaratne, Abhijeet Tomar, Pratham Singh, Ashok Sharma, Sam Billings, Alex Hales, Tim Southee, Ramesh Kumar, Mohammad Nabi, Umesh Yadav, Aman Khan.

Delhi Capitals
Prithvi Shaw, Anrich Nortje, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Shardul Thakur, Mustafizur Rahman, Kuldeep Yadav, Ashwin Hebbar, Sarfaraz Khan, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, KS Bharat, Mandeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Chetan Sakariya, Lalit Yadav, Ripal Patel, Yash Dhull, Rovm