The IPL 2021 auctions held on February 18 in Chennai turned out to be a big payday for most of the Australian players. Glenn Maxwell was bought by RCB for ₹14.25 crores whereas both of Jhye Richardson and Riley Meredith were bought by Punjab Kings for ₹14 crores and ₹8 crores respectively.

Another Australian player who had a surprising outing in the auctions was Moises Henriques. His base price was set at ₹1 crore but Royal Challengers Bangalore and Puniab Kings tussled hard for him. Finally Punjab acquired his services once again for a sum of ₹4.2 crores.

Henriques said that he expected to be bought at his base price at most, provided any team wanted to bid for him.

“I was not expecting to get picked up at all. It wasn’t until I woke up to go to the bathroom that I noticed I saw a couple of messages saying congrats on the pick-up and I thought, ‘That’s nice,’ and tried to go back to sleep as soon as possible,” Henriques told cricket.com.au.

“I just assumed I would have been picked up at base price. Then it wasn’t until I woke up properly in the morning that I realised how much I went for.”

Punjab Kings will be the fifth IPL team he will play for. Previously, he has represented Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Capitals and Sunrisers Hyderabad. 2017 was the last time he got a chance to play in the IPL. Overall he has 969 runs and 38 wickets to his name in the 57 IPL matches he has played during his career.

Henriques is looking forward to this as an opportunity to revive his Australia career once again.

“There’s no secret I was gutted when you fight your way into the international white-ball teams and then you get selected to go to South Africa and that tour doesn’t go ahead, and you don’t get your opportunity to defend your spot in that (T20) team when it goes to New Zealand,” Henriques said.