IPL 2019: Top 5 unsold players
Yet another IPL auction ended successfully on the 18th of December 2018 in Jaipur. Almost all the teams had their cores ready and were hunting for the players who would make the core stronger.
It was a one-day affair unlike most other editions of the auction, as there was not much left for the taking. With 70 slots available in total to pick, there were as much as 350 players who were scheduled to go under the hammer.
At the end of the auction, there were some great and some not so great surprises for the fans around the world. Some small and lesser-known players cashed in big, while some high-profile players could only get their base price.
Varun Chakravarthy, who came into the limelight for the first time in the auction room itself, got rewarded for his performance in local T20 leagues and the domestic circuit. Kings XI Punjab bought the young prodigy for 8.4 crore, the highest bid of the evening for an uncapped player.
Although the buzz was around the new players, there are also some players who have done well in the IPL for years but will be missing the next season. Quite a few big guns went unsold in this year's auction; for some, it was their performance that led to no bids against their names, while for the others it was just their bad luck which is to be blamed.
Here is a list of the top five players who went unsold at the auction.
#5. Alex Hales
Alex Hales is an explosive English opener. He was predicted to go for a big amount at the auction, but he will now have to sit in front of his television to watch the 2019 Indian Premier League.
Hales has a great T20 record of over 1600 runs in 57 matches, scoring at a strike rate of 136.25. He was signed by the Sunrisers Hyderabad last year, where he scored 148 runs in the 6 outings he had.
He could have been a great option as a opener for any team, as he can play with utmost freedom and smack the bowlers all around the park. But unfortunately for Hales, the teams did not feel so and hence, he went unsold.