IPL 2019 Auctions: 5 players who can start a bidding war
The IPL teams have completed the process to retain their players for the 2019 season, throwing up some interesting surprises with the list of retained and released players. With the respective purses beefed up, the teams now will keep an eye on the upcoming auctions to shore up their reserves.
Here we take a look at 5 players who could possibly earn big in the 2019 auctions.
Mohammad Shahzad
The diminutive, big hitting lad from Afghanistan, Shahzad has shown tremendous abilities with the bat both in domestic as well as International events. He gave a great account of his prowess in the Asia Cup when he took the Indian bowling apart as he smacked a century.
In the ongoing T10 tournament in UAE, the stocky batsman has been in rampant form. Playing for the Rajputs, he scored a barely believable 16 ball 74* which included 6 fours and 8 towering sixes helping his side chase a total in excess of 90 in under 5 overs.
Shahzad has always maintained that he his a huge fan of former India captain MS Dhoni, and always tries to emulate him - his near perfect 'helicopter shots' aptly sum up his admiration for the Indian legend.
In 77 one day internationals, he has scored 2544 runs, with an average of 34+, scoring 5 hundreds. In 64 T20Is for Afghanistan, the wicketkeeper-batsman has 1860 runs, averaging above, with a strike rate of 134.
He also holds the Afghan record for the first century in ODis and also the first double hundred in a first class game. Among the associate nations, Shahzad has the record for being awarded the player of the match on maximum occasions.
Come IPL 2019, we could arguably see a slug fest between franchises to rope Shahzad in their ranks. He is someone who can single-handedly win you games on his day, an opportunity many teams would love to have.