IPL Auction 2017: Unsold XI
The 2017 IPL player auction came to an end with the England duo of Ben Stokes and Tymal Mills being the costliest buys. The favourite for the costliest buy going into the auction, Stokes was bought by Rising Pune Supergiants for a whopping 14.5 crores INR while Tymal Mills was poached by RCB for 12 crores INR as they needed a good replacement for Mitchell Starc, who pulled out from the 2017 IPL just a day before the auction.
Out of the 352 players, a total of 66 players were sold and the franchises spent a total of 91.15 crores INR on all the players. The auction also had 286 players who were unsold. Let us take a look at a playing XI consisting of those players.
Note: We are following the same criteria as the IPL. Four overseas players and 7 Indians with one under-23 player.
Openers:
At the half-way stage, there were a lot of opening batsmen who remained unsold. Jason Roy, who was expected to fetch a huge amount at the auction was unsold when his name popped up for the first time earlier today. Along with Roy, his fellow England opener Alex Hales, Kiwi opening batsman Martin Guptill, Afghan's wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad, who is ranked 7th in the ICC T20I batsmen rankings, went unsold.
In the second round, Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab bought Roy and Guptill respectively while Shahzad and Hales remained unsold throughout the auctions. Jharkhand’s Virat Singh, who had a brilliant domestic season for his state side was not acquired by any of the eight teams and is eligible to feature in our unsold XI.
Virat made it to the XI ahead of Indian Test cricketers Cheteshwar Pujara and Abhinav Mukund and will bat at the top of the order in the unsold XI alongside Afghanistan’s Mohammad Shahzad. The Afghan was picked ahead of Hales just for his wicketkeeping skills and will don the keeper’s gloves in the XI as well.