IPL-Where a team wins in the auction itself
A whopping amount of money is spent every year in the IPL auction. A lot of players become famous overnight while some big names go unsold. Franchises assure that they utilize the resources efficiently to buy both international and domestic players as well. However, this year's auction was different from others as it saw key players like Gayle, Ashwin being transferred to another team which was a bit surprising.
This year's IPL seems to be more entertaining to watch and it is estimated that the no. of viewers will increase as compared to past years. Obviously, it is the most popular sports league in India as it has grabbed the attention of many cricket experts and analysts all over the globe. Franchises now have new combinations to deal with and it seems quite interesting to watch out for those strategies of the teams.
Talking about Royal Challengers Bangalore - captained by Virat Kohli - players like Brendon McCullum, Quinton De Kock, Umesh Yadav, Nathan Coulter Nile and many more star players have been bought by RCB, which makes the team balanced. The opening pair is likely to be Virat Kohli and Brendon McCullum, which is very destructive as they both can destroy the opposition's bowling attack.
Chennai Super Kings, a team on their comeback trail, lead by MS Dhoni, have spent on players like Harbhajan Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Mitchell Santner, Shane Watson, Murali Vijay. Surprisingly, Ashwin is not picked by the CSK and it will be fascinating to see how MS Dhoni will use Harbhajan Singh. This team holds the record of entering the playoffs every season and everyone is curious how CSK will perform after the brief exile.
Second team making its return - Rajasthan Royals - lead by Steven Smith, spent 12.5 Cr. on Ben Stokes. Some big players like Jos Buttler, Ben Laughlin, Ajinkya Rahane were also roped in by the Royals.
Steven Smith is a huge asset to the Rajasthan Royals as he can handle the pressure of the game and his ability to score at every part of ground. However, there is lack of all-rounders in the team as they have only Ben Stokes as an all-rounder. Recently, they appointed Amol Mazumdar as their batting coach.
Sunrisers Hyderabad, lead by David Warner, are looking seriously dangerous to the opposition with players like Shikhar Dhawan, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Shakib Al Hasan, Kane Williamson, Carlos Braithwaite, Rashid Khan and many more. They spent 58.5 Cr. in the auction itself and with such big names it has some great domestic players like Deepak Hooda, Sachin Baby, T.Natarajan and Basil Thampi. Sunrisers looks like a balanced team in this year's IPL with a fascinating bowling and batting attack.
Defending Champions Mumbai Indians, captained by Rohit Sharma, lost their big player Harbhajan Singh. However, they bought players like Ben Cutting, Mustafizur Rahman, J.P Duminy, Evin Lewis. The domestic players of Mumbai Indians however, seem to lack experience. Eventually it seems like the overseas players of Mumbai Indians will definitely make a huge impact on the viewers.
Two time Champions, Kolkata Knight Riders, lead by Dinesh Karthik, released their most successful Captain of their team, Gautam Gambhir and instead bought players like Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Nitish Rana, Piyush Chawla and Chris Lynn.
But the fact is their team somewhat looks imbalanced and weaker due to lack of experience of the players. However, their leading all-rounder, Andre Russell is back in the squad after he missed the previous year's IPL.
Talking about Kings XI Punjab, they surprised everyone in the auctions by getting big names like Yuvraj Singh, Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch, K.L Rahul, R.Ashwin, David Miller, Karun Nair and many other experienced domestic as well as International players are bought KXIP. Punjab have a strong squad and are one of the favourites on paper, going into the competition.
To everyone's surprise, Delhi Daredevils bought their former Captain Gautam Gambhir along with players like Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Chris Morris, Trent Boult, Colin Munro, Mohammed Shami and Amit Mishra as they spent enormous amount of Rs.45.4Cr in the auctions.
Delhi did not perform well in previous years of IPL. With their home captain coming back it will provide confidence to team members and management to execute their plans well enough to secure their place in the playoffs
Although the coming season of IPL is starting on 7th April,2018 the fans cannot hold their excitement as they are eagerly waiting for IPL and with these changes in the teams, this year's IPL is going to grab the attention of every cricket lover in the world.
Stay tuned for more updates!