Pace was the theme of the second day of bidding at the IPL player auction in Jeddah, with several Indian and overseas fast men earning solid deals as franchises scrambled to boost their bowling stocks.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Rs 10.75 crore), Deepak Chahar (Rs 9.25 crore), Akash Deep (Rs 8 crore), Marco Jansen (Rs 7 crore) and Tushar Deshpande (Rs 6.5 crore) were the headlines of the day.
The biggest bidding frenzy of the day began when former India seamer Bhuvneshwar’s name was taken, with Mumbai Indians (MI) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) chasing him immediately. At Rs 10.75 crore, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) joined the bidding, and they won Bhuvneshwar’s services with MI and LSG suddenly going mute.
The two Indian pacers released by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) ahead of the retention deadline found interest from a few franchises. Chahar went to MI for Rs 9.25 crore after CSK and Punjab Kings (PBKS) showed their eagerness, while Deshpande found his previous owners chasing him almost immediately, but eventually found a new IPL home with Rajasthan Royals (RR) after the Jaipur franchise went to Rs 6.50 crore.
Akash Deep’s name elicited prompt activity from CSK and LSG and later PBKS, and the seamer ended up with LSG for Rs 8 crore.
As on day one of the auction, PBKS again chased several valuable pace options, first forking out Rs 7 crore for South African quick Jansen and bidding as high as Rs 8 crore for India seamer Mukesh Kumar only to see Delhi Capitals (DC) use their Right to Match (RTM card) to buy him back. Another pace option that PBKS went after eagerly was Chahar, but eventually they backed out at Rs 7.75 crore to look on as MI and CSK continued the bidding.
Later in the day, other pace options obtained by PBKS included Azmatullah Omarzai for Rs 2.4 crore and New Zealander Lockie Ferguson for his base price of Rs 2 crore.
In getting Sam Curran for his base price of Rs 2 crore, CSK added another valuable allrounder and then they went hard for uncapped domestic pacer Anshul Kamboj, holding off DC and LSG to get him for Rs 3.4 crore.
Former KKR captain Nitish Rana went attracted interest from CSK, RR and RCB before he went to RR for Rs 4.2 crore. Krunal Pandya was bagged by RCB for Rs 7.75 crore.
The little-known teenaged Afghanistan spinner Allah Ghazanfar, who made his ODI in March, won a bid of Rs 4.80 crore from MI after entering his first IPL auction with a base price of Rs 75 lakh.
Heads also turned when RR valued the 13-year-old batsman from Bihar, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, at Rs 1.1 crore. Another surprise was the frenzy that surrounded 23-year-old Delhi batsman Priyansh Arya, who went PBKS for Rs 3.8 crore after the franchise held off bids from MI, DC and RCB.
Among the players who went unsold were Shardul Thakur, Piyush Chawla, Prithvi Shaw, Daryl Mitchell, Kane Williamson, Gus Atkinson, Steve Smith, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Keshav Maharaj, Dewald Brevis, Ben Duckett, Chris Jordan, Kyle Mayers, Umesh Yadav and Mustafizur Rahman.
