IPL Auction & Ruthlessness of Money Power

A day before IPL 2017 auction, there was a bombshell. Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) had asked (or in plain words sacked) Dhoni to quit captaincy. He was replaced by Australian captain Steven Smith. Later RPS owner Mr.Sanjiv Goenka told that he wanted a younger captain & he was very impressed with the Australian Captain. He is free to select any captain but the wrong word was used. A statement like this would have made more sense – “Dhoni quit Pune Captaincy”. This is the same money power which had humiliated Indian greats like Ganguly, Dravid & Laxman in past. Even BCCI didn’t have the guts to openly sack MSD. But a less known industrialist did the same. IPL must give importance to money but should show some empathy.

Now coming back to auction. It was a reality check for many big players & life changing days for many unknown players. I was surprised to no takes for Ishant Sharma considering lack of good Indian fast bowlers. His base price was very high but Varun Aron got more money than Ishant’s base price. Another big surprise was Imran Tahir. World’s number 1 T20 bowlers was unsold at a base price of 50 lakhs. Yes, we have many talented domestic spinners but you can’t ignore such talented player who 2 days ago destroyed New Zeeland on his own. Another surprising omission for me was Virat Singh (19 year old Jharkhsnd’s opner) who played helped East Zone winning Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. 

But there was many pleasant surprises also. Pat Cummins (who was once considered a brighter prospect than Strac in Australian domestic circuit) got a good price of 4.5 cr. There is no doubt about quality of Ben Strokes. Its difficult to find a better all-rounder than him at this moment despite his last over horror of 2016 ICC T20 world cup final. It was good to see that Indian domestic performers like Manoj Tiwari, Ishank Jaggi, Karan Sharma, Rishi Dhawan, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammed Siraj etc will get a chance to show their talents in IPL.  And IPL may be a big boost to Afghan cricket. And it may strengthen the love for India among ordinary Afghans which may be helpful for India.

It is too early to say the about the balance of IPL sides after the action. RCB, Gujrat Lions, Sunrisers, Delhi, KKR have their core settled. New players will add more values to team. But we can see some dark horses like Rajasthan Royals or Pune. But I still think on paper (as always) RCB looks to be very strong. You can’t assemble a better batting team than Kholi, ABD, Gale, KL Rahul, Shane Watson, Sarfraz Khan. I would definitely like to see an Indian lifting the IPL trophy.