With players of suspended Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings slipped away to Intex Rajkot and New Rising Pune, the existing six franchise of the Indian Premier League (IPL) are set to release some top international cricketers. The biggest name of them are Dale Steyn and Yuvraj Singh, who are facing the sack from the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Daredevils.
The South African bowling spearhead, who failed to impress his franchise last season in the IPL, is thrown into the auction along with Yuvraj Singh of Delhi Daredevils and Dinesh Karthik of Royals Challengers Bangalore.
Steyn in the last season has played six games and taken three wickets at an expensive average of 66.66 and an extravagant strike rate of 38. After failed to back in the mojo, he was replaced by New Zealand paceman Trent Boult, who was the preferred foreign pacer for the starting XI. Boult played seven games and claimed nine wickets with much better average and strike rate than Steyn.
Having retaining him in the squad the, Sunrisers had lost Rs 9.5 crore from their coffers and by releasing Steyn they could recover that much money going into next year’s auction. The franchise will have the option of buying him back. Boult had come for the much cheaper price of Rs 3.8 crores.
The other big international name that faces a similar fate like Steyn George Bailey. The Australian was the skipper of Kings XI Punjab for the last two years but the performance of the World Cup winning player was nothing great.
Bailey had scored 259 from 13 games. Besides, the had a poor season under him, having finished at the bottom of the table. They had won just three of their 14 games. Kings XI Punjab will recover Rs 3.25 by releasing him.
There is a news that Punjab may also release players like Beuran Hendricks, (bought for Rs 1.8 crore), Thishara Perera (Rs 1.6 crores), Parvinder Awana (Rs 65 Lakhs) and Shivam Sharma (Rs 10 lakh) as well.
Meanwhile, Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Karthik, who were bought for whopping 16 crores and 12.5 crores respectively, were under huge pressure to deliver, but they did not exactly set the stadia for fire. Yuvraj in 14 games scored 248 while Karthik scored paltry 141 off 16 games. The buzz is that both are now on the hit list of their respective franchises.
Yuvraj in 14 games scored 248 while Karthik scored paltry 141 off 16 games. The buzz is that both are now on the hit list of their respective franchises.