Who Said What: Cricketing fraternity reacts to shocks and surprises from first day of IPL auctions
The first day of IPL Auction 2018 saw as many as 78 players being bought by the various franchises. However, there were quite a few surprising omissions as well. The likes of Chris Gayle, Joe Root, Martin Guptill and Lasith Malinga found no takers while Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes and KL Rahul will be joyously counting their money.
Sunrisers Hyderabad are probably the biggest winners after day 1. Having retained David Warner and Bhuvneshwar Kumar prior to the auction, they conducted some very smart business, roping in the likes of Kane Williamson, Shakib Al Hasan and Manish Pandey.
Kolkata Knight Riders' approach was strange, for wont of a better word. While they did secure the services of Chris Lynn and Mitchell Starc, they spent way over the top on most of the other players.
On that note, take a look at how the cricketing fraternity reacted to the first day of IPL Auction 2018:
The owners and coaches of the sides had some interesting words to say as well.
Akash Ambani, Mumbai Indians owner: "If you look at the quality of uncapped players to capped players, they are very similar. I am not surprised they went for those prices. I agree with Ricky that the latter part of the day would be busy."
Daredevils coach, Ricky Ponting: "Yeah, we have had a fair bit of thought into that [captaincy]. It's likely that Gambhir right now will lead Delhi next season. He sort of conveyed that he would like to come back to Delhi and hopefully lead the team. It's pretty hard to fault his leadership credentials. We felt that little bit of experience would help. I am sure Gautam would do a good job for us."