IPL Auction 2020: 3 released overseas players who might go unsold
With less than a month left for the Indian Premier League auction, the preparations for the event have already started gathering pace with all the franchises pondering over the players that they need to target at the auction next month. All the teams are now left with a specific number of overseas slots for which they can bid for in the IPL auction.
Royal Challengers Bangalore enjoy a luxury 6 overseas slots available to them in the auction. While quite settled in terms of their squads ahead of the new season, Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad, and Chennai Super Kings have only a couple of overseas slots heading into the auction.
Though it is a mini-auction with teams looking to fill in the voids in their retained squads, it will still be exciting to watch as some of the best domestic overseas talents go under the hammer in the auction.
The franchises have also identified and released their underutilized overseas recruits from last season as they return into the auction. The release of some of the players including the likes of Chris Lynn, Marcus Stoinis, and Sam Curran does come as a surprise, but teams might look to go after them hoping to avail their services at a lower auction price.
It is also likely that some of these players will not get bids from the franchises and go unsold at the auction on December 19. Here, we take a look at 3 released overseas players who might go unsold in the IPL Auction 2020.
#3 Heinrich Klaasen
The South African wicket-keeper batsman, Heinrich Klaasen, arrived onto the T20 scene due to his hard-hitting abilities in the format.
However, Klaasen, who was released by RCB ahead of IPL auction 2020, had a disappointing outing with the franchise as he failed to grab the chances that came his way. He played only three games during the fag end of the tournament in what was an awful run for the Kohli-led side in 2019, and scored only nine runs, doing no justice to his reputation of a dasher of the cricket ball.
Now when he returns in the IPL auction, Klaasen might go unsold as teams might overlook his profile as a wicket-keeper batsman to consider some of the young emerging talents who have made the right noises for them to be given an opportunity in the upcoming edition.
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Even last year, the 28-year old was looked at as a back-up option who failed to break into the side on a regular basis. And with a limitation in the available overseas slots, franchises might want to invest in an overseas player who could make the playing XI rather than as a back-up to any wicket-keeper.