Australia cricket team pace spearhead Pat Cummins became the most expensive foreign player in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL) as Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bagged him for a whopping Rs 15.5 crore in IPL 2020 auction held in Kolkata on Thursday.
Cummins’ bidding price went past England all-rounder Ben Stokes’ previous record auction bid of Rs 14.5 crore, made at the IPL 2017 auctions. The Australian pacer also became the second-most-expensive player in the history of IPL auctions, next only to Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh, who had been signed by the Delhi franchise (then Delhi Daredevils, now Delhi Capitals) for Rs 16 crore in the 2015 season.
Here is how all the eight franchises fared in the IPL 2020 auction.
Chennai Super Kings: Having already retained their core set of players, CSK added four bowling options to their squad. Apart from bidding big for Piyush Chawla, the Chennai-based franchise picked up England all-rounder Sam Curran, Australia’s Josh Hazlewood and Indian uncapped R Sai Kishore.
Existing squad: MS Dhoni (c), Imran Tahir, Lungi Ngidi, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Harbhajan Singh, Faf du Plessis, Suresh Raina, N Jagadeesan, M Vijay, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Monu Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Karn Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, KM Asif.
New additions: Piyush Chawla, Josh Hazlewood, R Sai Kishore, Sam Curran.
Delhi Capitals: Delhi managed to reach the play-offs last season and in bid to go one better in the upcoming season, DC invested heavily in big-hitters. Delhi bought Shimron Hetmyer for Rs 7.75 crore while they spent Rs 4.80 crore on Marcus Stoinis.
Existing squad: Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, R Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Sandeep Lamichhane, Kagiso Rabada, Ishant Sharma, Keemo Paul, Avesh Khan.
New additions: Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey, Jason Roy, Chris Woakes, Mohit Sharma, Tushar Deshpande, Lalit Yadav.
Kings XI Punjab: Kings XI Punjab bought Glenn Maxwell for Rs 10.75 crore as they added some all-rounders to their squad. Punjab also got the West Indies fast-bowler, Sheldon Cottrell, in their squad by picking him for Rs 8.50 crore.
Existing squad: KL Rahul (wk), Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Mandeep Singh, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Murugan Ashwin, Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, K. Gowtham, J. Suchith, Harpreet Brar, Mohammed Shami, Hardus Viljoen, Arshdeep Singh, Darshan Nalkande.
New additions: Glenn Maxwell, Sheldon Cottrell, Chris Jordan, Ravi Bishnoi, Prabhsimran Singh, Deepak Hooda, Jimmy Neesham, Tajinder Dhillon, Ishan Porel.
Kolkata Knight Riders: KKR were in a bidding war but they managed to get Pat Cummins in their squad for a whopping Rs 15.50 crore. With the signing, Cummins also became the most expensive overseas buy in the history of IPL. Knight Riders also got England-captain Eoin Morgan in their squad.
Existing squad: Shubman Gill, Siddesh Lad, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Rinku Singh, Nitish Rana, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Harry Gurney, Lockie Ferguson, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier.
New additions: Pat Cummins, Eoin Morgan, Varun Chakravarthy, Tom Banton, Rahul Tripathi, Chris Green, Nikhil Naik, Pravin Tambe, M Siddharth.
Mumbai Indians: The defending champions spent heavily to get the services of Australia all-rounder Nathan Coulter-Nile. MI bought Coulter-Nile for Rs 8 crore. Mumbai also managed to get Chris Lynn, who scored heavily in the T10 League, for his base price of Rs 2 crore.
Existing squad: Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Quinton de Kock (wk), Aditya Tare (wk), Anmolpreet Singh, Kieron Pollard, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Rahul Chahar, Jayant Yadav, Anukul Roy, Jasprit Bumrah, Lasith Malinga, Trent Boult, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mitchell McClenaghan.
New additions: Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Saurabh Tiwary, Digvijay Deshmukh, Prince Balwant Rai Singh, Mohsin Khan.
Rajasthan Royals: Robin Uthappa and Jaydev Unadkat will be seen playing for the Royals in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League. Rajasthan, much like every season, went for Indain youngsters and picked up Mumbai’s Yashasvi Jaiswal for Rs 2.40 crore.
Existing squad: Jos Buttler (wk), Steve Smith, Sanju Samson (wk), Manan Vohra, Riyan Parag, Ben Stokes, Mahipal Lomror, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mayank Markande, Jofra Archer, Ankit Rajpoot, Varun Aaron.
New additions: Robin Uthappa, Jaydev Unadkat, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kartik Tyagi, Tom Curran, Andrew Tye, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Oshane Thomas, Anirudha Joshi, Akash Singh.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Bangalore spent Rs 10 crore to get Chris Morris in their squad. RCB also spent over Rs 8 crore to get the Australian duo of Aaron Finch and Kane Richardson. In the last stages of the auction, the Bangalore-based franchise picked up Dale Steyn, who played for them last season, for his base price of Rs 2 crore.
Existing squad: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Parthiv Patel (wk), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj.
New additions: Chris Morris, Aaron Finch, Kane Richardson, Dale Steyn, Isuru Udana, Shahbaz Ahamad, Joshua Philippe, Pavan Deshpande.
SunRisers Hyderabad: Hyderabad did not go for big names in the auction but they ticked all the boxes as they bought five all-rounders out of the seven players they picked in Kolkata.
Existing squad: Kane Williamson, David Warner, Manish Pandey, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Billy Stanlake, T Natarajan, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha, Shreevats Goswami, Basil Thampi.
New additions: Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Mitchell Marsh, Abdul Samad, Fabian Allen, Sanjay Yadav, Bavanaka Sandeep.
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