It was a day of hits and misses, purses and cheque-books, permutations and combinations as some of the best players in the world went under the hammer in the Indian Premier League auction of 2014.
Yuvraj Singh took home a massive 14 crore, while Dinesh Karthik’s acquisition for a whopping 12.5 crore was surely a case of an auction stategy gone wrong.
SPORTZWIKI casts an eye on the WORST 5 buys of the day.
1. Dinesh Karthik
Yes, an Indian wicketkeeper batsman of decent international experience is expected to fetch decent money, but Rs 12.5 crore for Dinesh Karthik is surely a case of Delhi Daredevils getting far too carried away. Karthik’s stats in the IPL are pretty average and his strike rate is hardly impressive, so this SHOCKER from Delhi Daredevils is our WORST buy for the IPL auction of 2014.
2. Piyush Chawla
KKR do prefer the slow pitches of the Eden Gardens and were searching for another spinner to bowl in tandem with the dangerous Sunil Narine, but Piyush Chawla‘s buy for Rs 4.25 crore is one that we are still trying to make sense of. As Chawla laughs his way to the bank, Kolkata Knight Riders may have to ponder on what went wrong as their spending on the bowling department has left them weak in the middle order.
3. Cheteshwar Pujara
New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum recently made a comment on Cheteshwar Pujara : “He is the key wicket obviously. He can bat for weeks!”, and although Pujara is a proven test match batsman with excellent technique on all sorts of pitches, his ODI batting skills are still unproven, and the Indian batsman looked out of place as he played for the KKR and Royal Challengers Bangalore in previous IPLs. Even at Rs 1.9 crore, this is a buy that the Kings XI Punjab could have done without.
4. Yuvraj Singh
We all love Yuvraj Singh and there is no doubt that the southpaw still has a lot to offer in international cricket, but paying Rs 14 crore on one player could disturb the entire balance of the RCB squad. In the previous edition of the IPL, Yuvraj scored a mere 238 runs at an average of 19 for the now non-existent Pune franchise with a top score of only 34.
Has Vijay Mallya gone overboard on a player whose potential is undoubted but whose record at best is sketchy over the last 12 months?
5. Mitchell Starc
Buying a non-Indian fast bowler for Rs 5 cr defies economic and cricketing logic, as franchises are only allowed to field 4 overseas players. Even more so for RCB who already had Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers in their ranks and are expected to play both in each game! Let’s hope this particular investment by Vijay Mallya works out for him, but we are not convinced.
