The start of the Indian Premier League is going to lose some of its shine, as two of the biggest attractions of the league – Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell – will miss the opening games of their respective teams.
Finch is due to get hitched with partner Amy Griffiths on April 7, the day the eleventh season of the league commences. Kings XI Punjab shelled out a whopping Rs 6.2 crore to secure the services of the Australian opener.
On the other hand, Maxwell will skip his team Delhi Daredevils’ opening fixture, as he has been appointed to MC [Master of Ceremonies] the wedding.
The hard-hitting all-rounder was bought by the Daredevils for an enormous Rs 9 crore during this year’s auction. In the last four seasons, Maxwell had plied his trade for Kings XI Punjab.
“I saw the fixture this morning – there’s no chance I’ll be missing my wedding. That’d be a bit tough leaving Amy at the altar, wouldn’t it? The second game we play is on the 13th, that’ll give me plenty of time to get over there and miss only one game luckily,” Finch had said in February.
“This is an interesting one, and I haven’t told anyone this before, not even Punter [Ponting] – we’ve got Aaron Finch’s wedding on April 7,” Maxwell had said. “They said the IPL was going to start on the April 15th – he thought the dates were set, but we found out about three months ago it was going to start on the eighth.”
Interestingly, Delhi and Punjab will open their campaign against each other. Delhi will welcome Punjab in their opening clash on April 9 at Feroz Shah Kotla.
Meanwhile, defending champions Mumbai Indians will take on Chennai Super Kings in the tournament-opener on April 7th.
Here is the news feed:
IPL 2018: Always Wanted to Play for Mumbai Indians – Ishan Kishan