IPL Auction 2019: Rating the teams based on their performance in the auction
The 2019 IPL auction took place last night (December 18) in Jaipur and as many as 351 players went under the hammer out of which the eight franchises bought 60 players (out of which 20 are overseas internationals) and spent a total of 1,06,80,00,000 INR in purchasing them. Last year's costliest Indian pick Jaydev Unadkat was the costliest pick of the season as he was picked by Rajasthan Royals again for 8.4 crores, the same amount that was spent on Tamil Nadu spinner CV Varun. Following Unadkat and CV Varun is England all-rounder Sam Curran, who was bought by Varun's team Kings XI Punjab for 7.2 crores.
Some franchise spent their money shrewdly and some, splashed their money on players and got them for a price that is more than what they actually deserve.
Let us take a look at how the eight franchises fared in the auction and where they stand among all the other teams that took part in the auction.
Mumbai Indians
Having a good enough squad at their disposal coming into the auction, Mumbai Indians started off the auction by signing Punjab all-rounder Anmolpreet Singh, former MI pacer Lasith Malinga, Indian pacer Barinder Sran etc. The blockbuster signing of the auction for Mumbai came at the very end as the franchise signed Yuvraj Singh for his base price of 1 crore when the unsold players came into the auction again.
But, barring Sran and Anmolpreet Singh, the signing they made were questionable. It is very evident that the likes of Lasith Malinga and Yuvraj Singh are well past their prime and only time will tell whether these players will be worth the money or not.
Players signed: Lasith Malinga - 2 crores, Anmolpreet Singh - 80 lakhs, Barinder Sran - 3.40 crore, Pankaj Jaiswal - 20 lakhs, Rasikh Dar - 20 lakhs, Yuvraj Singh - 1 crore.
Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Mayank Markande, Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Kieron Pollard, Ben Cutting, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Jason Behrendorff, Evin Lewis and Quinton de Kock.
Rating: BAD
Where they rank among 8 teams in the IPL auction: 8/8