Punjab Kings broke their bank to regain English allrounder Sam Curran with a shockingly high bid of INR 18.50 crores, making the Zimbabwe-born cricketer the highest bid player ever in the league’s history at the IPL 2023 mini-auction on Friday.
Curran, who didn’t play the IPL 2022 due to an injury enforced break, was the highest selling set 2 player, featuring multiple bid-name allrounders, at the bidding war and garnered interest from various franchises, including his former franchise Chennai Super Kings. The player did go back to his former franchise. But it was the PBKS, who restored him in their set-up for the first time since IPL 2019.
Only second to Curran at the auction table was rising Australian allrounder Cameron Green, who, as was being expected, found great interest from all franchises and ultimately went to the five-time champions Mumbai Indians for a whopping INR 17.50 crores.
He was another of the hefty sum picks from set 2 after setting his base prize for INR 2 crores, like Curran, recognising the IPL franchises’ need to include a multidimensional cricketer in their plans to refine the balance of their first-choice playing units.
In Green’s case, MI were in desperate need to find a long-term adequate replacement for their stalwart allrounder Kieron Pollard after he retired from IPL cricket recently, indirectly paving way for the Australian’s maiden gig in the toughest T20 league.
Another bright young talent set for his first-ever Premier League stint is English middle-order batter Harry Brook, whose name erupted the real tussle at the auction room. The right-hand batter, who just top-scored in England’s 3-0 Test series triumph in Pakistan, went for INR 13.25 crores to Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The IPL 2023 is also set to witness the return of premier England allrounder Ben Stokes to the league after a two-year absence. Stokes will be reuniting with his former Rising Pune SuperGiants skipper MS Dhoni at the CSK, which bid a sum of INR 16.25 crores to secure his services in what was essentially Stokes’ third such major paycheque day at an IPL auction.
The set 2 also had Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan going unsold, while Zimbabwean Sikandar Raza had his IPL dream fulfilled at a base sum bid of INR 50 lakhs with PBKS. West Indian Odean Smith went for INR 50 lakhs, too, to Gujarat Titans.
It was the Titans that began the bidding day, giving a surprise base sum bid to Kane Williamson for INR 2 crores from set 1, where Indian international and former PBKS captain Mayank Agarwal attracted INR 8.25 crores bid from SRH.
CSK roped in Ajinkya Rahane at a base sum bid of 50 lakhs but modern-day England giant Joe Root’s IPL gig remained elusive. Also going unsold, quite surprisingly, was South Africa’s hard-hitting middle-order batter Riley Rossouw.
Rahane had been picked by Kolkata Knight Riders last year in a stint where the experienced Indian cricketer failed to live up to the faith shown by the two-time champions. Him finding a gig with CSK makes for an interesting case study, in that the franchise is expected to play their home games at Chepauk and Rahane has a renowned weakness against spin.
How they manage that, and the inclusion of Stokes would be keenly followed from the outside as CSK strive to overcome a disastrous IPL 2022 campaign and return to winning ways. Also set to be gauged with great interest over the coming season is how Curran warms up with PBKS and whether Green reinforces himself as an allround match-winner he can be with MI.
