3 IPL trades equivalent to Lewis Hamilton's switch to Ferrari from Mercedes in Formula 1
Formula One star Lewis Hamilton made news earlier this week when he announced his decision to sign for Ferrari on a multi-year deal, starting from the 2025 racing season.
The British driver will leave his current team Mercedes at the end of the 2024 season, with this piece of news shocking sporting fans across the world.
Hypothetically speaking, there have been quite a few similarities between the Hamilton deal and to ones we have seen in our very own Indian Premier League (IPL) in cricket. And now seems to be more than a good time to expostulate on such possibilities.
In this listicle, we bring to you three such IPL trade equivalents:
#1 Hardik Pandya to Mumbai Indians from Gujarat Titans, 2023
Mumbai Indians (MI) created news earlier this year when they paid Gujarat Titans (GT) a transfer fee to bring their title-winning captain Hardik Pandya back to the Wankhede.
Pandya had originally been an MI player, but had moved to the Titans ahead of the 2022 IPL season.
MI felt that they needed Pandya back into their side to push for a title run in the upcoming season.
The five-time champions have not won the IPL since 2020, and have been let down by some ordinary performances from their players in the recent past.
MI feel that Pandya can provide the X-factor and guide them towards the title this season.
#2 Shikhar Dhawan to Delhi Capitals from SunRisers Hyderabad, 2019
One of the biggest trades ever made in the IPL was that of Shikhar Dhawan from SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) to Delhi Capitals (DC) ahead of the 2019 IPL season.
The Orange Army chose to make this trade with the Delhi-based franchise in return for three domestic players- Shahbaz Nadeem, Abhishek Sharma, and Vijay Shankar.
As it turned out, this proved to be one of the most remarkable trades in the history of the IPL.
Dhawan turned out to be a lethal batter at the top of the order for the Capitals and scored 521 runs at an average of 34.73 that season.
In the next edition (2020), Dhawan experienced his best-ever IPL season, plundering 618 runs and even made history by scoring back-to-back IPL centuries. The SunRisers were only left watching in shock.
#3 Quinton de Kock to Mumbai Indians from Royal Challengers Bangalore, 2019
Quinton de Kock was traded by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to their big-time rivals Mumbai Indians ahead of the 2019 IPL auction.
This decision was taken by RCB owing to the poor run of form he endured in the 2018 edition, where he amassed a mere 201 runs in eight innings with just one fifty to his name.
However, soon after his shift to MI, de Kock enjoyed a massive surge in form. He led his way through the batting charts that season and became MI's leading run-scorer with 529 runs.
In the 2020 edition, the South African wicketkeeper-batter scored 503 runs at an average of 35.93 and a strike rate of over 140. De Kock played a critical role in MI winning two consecutive IPL titles in 2019 and 2020.