Indian Premier League: Five teams overpaid for players in a mini-auction
The IPL 2023 mini-auction saw a lot of money spent on certain players. And in this case, ‘lot’ is not hyperbole – the sums paid by some of the franchises were mind-boggling for specific players
Mayank Agarwal : rejected by Punjab picked up by SRHAnd there’s no doubt that franchises have a reason for buying whichever players they target. However, while going over some of the sums forked out, there is an inescapable feeling that some franchises have paid more than what some talents were worth.
With that in mind, here are five players whose teams overspent in this edition of the IPL mini-auction.
Nicholas Pooran – The undisputed winner of this list. It is telling that Pooran was considered too expensive at 10-odd crores by Sunrisers Hyderabad and was released into the auction pool, yet he wound up getting a contract worth over five crores more than his previous one.
This isn’t a knock on his talent, but the sum paid is even more puzzling, considering that the Lucknow Super Giants paid that much for him. They already have a first-choice wicketkeeper-batsman in Quinton de Kock, but the price paid for Pooran means he will be a starter, which should make for some exciting team selection headaches.
Rilee Rossouw – The South African batsman impressed during the tour of India just before the T20 World Cup. However, the fact that he is on the wrong side of 30 and still fetched a cool Rs. A 4.6 crore bid from the Delhi Capitals still feels like an overspend.
It becomes even more puzzling when you remember that the same franchise signed Phil Salt, who plays the same role as Rossouw and has a more significant upside, given his age. Oh, and both will most likely be backups to Mitchell Marsh, meaning Rs. 6.4 crore was spent on bench options.
Mayank Agarwal – Given he is an Indian opening batsman, there was a feeling that many teams would consider targeting Agarwal when he was released into the auction pool by Punjab Kings. However, a fee of Rs. 8.25 crore for a player who has been underwhelming in recent seasons is a lot.
This is a case of needs-must for a franchise; the Sunrisers needed an opener and went hard for Agarwal, who was available. But, harsh as it seems, he would not have attracted a bid that big if he was a foreign player who had the kind of recent season stats that does.
KS Bharat – Given Gujarat Titans already have both Matthew Wade and Wriddhiman Saha in their ranks, it was a bit surprising to see them go hammer and tongs for and spend Rs. 1.2 crore on Bharat, who has a backup player written all over him.
The fact that he came in with a base price of Rs. 20 lakhs makes it even more surprising, and while it is understandable to want a third wicketkeeping option. Gujarat had the money, but it was still surprising to see that much spent on a player who will, in all likelihood, be up for auction again next year.
Shivam Mavi – When KKR released the 2018 U-19 World Cup winner into the auction pool, everyone knew he would attract a decent bid given that, despite being just 24, he is already an IPL veteran and is an Indian pace bowler – an auction commodity that always fetches big money.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mayank Agarwal is in high demand too <br><br>CSK....and now SRH are bidding for him <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IPLAuction?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IPLAuction</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IPL2023?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IPL2023</a></p>— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNcricinfo/status/1606219878590869504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 23, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But given that he was not a regular for KKR over the past couple of years and had a tendency to be erratic with his lines and lengths, Rs. 6 crore still seems like a lot of money. But given the absence of both Lockie Ferguson and Varun Aaron, Gujarat needed a pacer and got one in Mavi.