5 Overseas Players who could be the most sought after at the IPL Auction
IPL Auction is just a week away and there is already a lot of buzz around the team strategies. The teams have announced the players that they have released and the fans are already busy analyzing the needs of all the eight teams.
346 Players, domestic as well as overseas, have been shortlisted for the auction according to the preferences of the franchises and they will go under the hammer on 18th December in Jaipur.
There won’t be a familiar face in Richard Madley as the auctioneer of the event with Hugh Edmeades, a charity auctioneer, conducting the proceedings.
The auction this year will be very different from the previous editions, primarily due to two reasons. First and the foremost is that the IPL 2019 which will be held in April-May precedes the ICC World Cup scheduled to begin on 30th May. A lot of players will be leaving the tournament early while some of the big guns have opted out of the blockbuster tournament. Players from England and Australia will be playing matches before 1st May and will be leaving for national duty.
New Zealand, South Africa, and West Indies have allowed their players to play the whole duration of the tournament. Players like Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc and Mustafizur Rahman will not be participating in the IPL to be completely fit for the quadrennial event. So the teams at the auction table will be looking to target non-World Cup players as they will be available for the entire tourney.
The auction will be different and there is one more reason to it. 2019 is the year when the general elections take place and therefore it is highly speculated that the IPL will be shifted out of India like it was in 2009 as well as 2014 and therefore the team strategy will change.
As a lot of curiosity and excitement builds around the IPL Auction 2019 we take a look at the five players who could attract the highest bids from the franchises at the auction table.
5. Hazratullah Zazai (Afghanistan)
At No. 5 on our list, is the very new sensation from Afghanistan, Hazratullah Zazai. A few seasons ago, there weren’t too many from the country but the meteoric rise of this nation in international cricket has resulted in many players getting an opportunity to ply their trade in the IPL.
Zazai first came into the limelight, a couple of months ago, when he hit six sixes in an over in the Afghan Premier League. He was in good form in the tournament held in UAE with 322 runs to his name in 10 matches.
Overall in the 20 matches, he has played in the shortest format of the game, he has scored 712 runs at a strike rate nearing 160.
On his debut tour of Ireland in August, Zazai helped Afghanistan win the three-match series 2-0 on the back of his back-to-back half centuries. With a lot of hard-hitting openers from England and Australia not available for the entire duration of the tournament, Hazratullah Zazai may attract a lot of bids at the auction table.
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