Flamboyant Australian Glenn Maxwell is expected to be a favourite, despite his under-whelming record, along with England’s spin bowling all-rounder Moeen Ali during a condensed IPL players auction slated here on Thursday.
A total of 292 players have been enlisted for the shortened auctions — 164 of them Indian and 125 overseas. There will also be three associate players in the auction.
With 61 slots across eight franchises up for grabs, Royal Challengers Bangalore has the maximum, 11 vacancies, to fill with a purse of `35.4 crore while Sunrisers Hyderabad has only three slots available with `10.75 crore in its kitty.
The highest purse available is with Anil Kumble coached Punjab Kings, formerly Kings XI Punjab, which has `53.20 crore available for spending on nine spots.
With the IPL back in India after being held in the UAE last year, focus will be on big-hitters as well as slow bowlers and Maxwell and Moeen fit the category to the T.
However, Maxwell averages 22 in the tournament, having played 82 matches for his 1505 runs. He last played for Punjab.
Moeen, on the other hand, was seen in action for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the previous season.
While Maxwell and his former skipper Steve Smith are both in the highest bidding category of `2 crore, one name that will surely attract attention is world’s No 1 ranked T20 batsman Dawid Malan.
A strike-rate of nearly 150 in 19 T20Is has catapulted Malan into limelight and a few teams may like to raise their bids for the 33-year-old with a base price of `1.5 crore.
One of the most keenly-watched teams going into the auction will be Chennai Super Kings after a nightmarish 2020 season when they failed to qualify for the IPL play-offs for the first time in tournament’s history.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and head coach Stephen Fleming have always valued experience way more than exuberance of youth in their team.
So, with `19.90 crore to spend and six vacancies to fill, Dhoni will look at some potential big hitters to help him, Suresh Raina and Faf du Plessis in the middle.
Since the IPL will be held in India, Maxwell despite his under-achieving stats could be picked for his skills as a tight off-break bowler on slower tracks.
In case of Malan, Kings XI Punjab could walk away with him considering their purse and lack of consistent firepower at the top of the order.
The only part that is debatable about Malan is how good he is when it comes to playing slow bowlers in Indian conditions.
Among Indian players, the three notable capped names are Kedar Jadhav, veteran off-spinner Harbhajn Singh and fast bowler Umesh Yadav.
The auction dynamics, when it comes to Indian players, have been very different compared to foreign players due to the limited available slots (8) in each squad.
That’s the reason Sunrisers Hyderabad or a Rajasthan Royals won’t mind having an Umesh on board because of his experience at the highest level.
Similarly, Kedar and Harbhajan, with high-end base prices may go unsold during the first lot. But they are likely to picked up in the final hour after franchises have settled squads.
Ditto for Steve Smith, among those with the highest base price but having a strike-rate which is not the greatest for a top-order batsman, might not find too many bidders unless any franchise is looking for a suitable captaincy candidate.
As usual, there would be some eye-popping bids for the uncapped domestic players like Kerala’s Mohammed Azharuddeen (Junior), Tamil Nadu’s handsome hulk Shah Rukh Khan, all-rounder R Sonu Yadav, Baroda’s Vishnu Solanki and Bengal’s Akash Deep. They could invite mini-bidding wars with their lowest base price bracket of `20 lakh.
Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun, a left arm fast bowler who made his senior Mumbai team debut this year, is bracketed in the `20 lakh category and the kind of traction that the young kid brings along could mean that some bidders will be there for him.