The keenly-awaited IPL auction concluded on December 23 this year. The various teams of the marquee event spent an overall Rs 167 crore out of their purses. As expected, all-rounders made a killing with England’s Sam Curran and Ben Stokes walking away with astounding sums of Rs 18.50 crore and Rs 16.25 crore respectively. But there were certain players who were surprisingly ignored and went unsold. So, let us find out who they happen to be.
Dasun Shanaka
Unlike some of the international players, the Sri Lankan all-rounder kept his base price at a modest 50 lakh. But despite being a hard hitter down the order and a handy medium pacer, the white-ball skipper of the Sri Lankan team was ignored by the IPL franchises. This was indeed unfathomable as he had rescued Sri Lanka from hopeless scenarios in the past with sweet little cameos, especially in the T-20 format. Also, he boasts of a strike rate of more than 143 from 173 T-20 games.
Wayne Parnell
A hugely experienced allrounder in the shortest format, Parnell has served South African cricket well in the shortest format in recent times. He has a lot of variations in his bowling, making him a suitable bowler at any stage of the innings. From 245 matches internationally, he has grabbed 247 wickets at an economy rate of 7.81. And he is no mug with the bat, yet he went unsold in the auction where multi-skilled players were much in demand.
Sandeep Sharma
A highly experienced IPL player who has been active in the extravagant league from 2014 onwards. However, his IPL form had deserted him for the last two years or so. In the last season, he only had two wickets to show from 5 outings for Sun Risers Hyderabad. But he had made amends recently in domestic cricket where he picked 13 wickets from seven games during the Vijay Hazare Trophy. And looking at his base price of 50 lakhs he could have easily been given another chance to prove his mettle. But there were no takers for him this time at the auction.
Saurabh Kumar
The UP lad made a lot of heads turn recently when he took 15 wickets in the two-match unofficial
Test series against Bangladesh-A team. The fabulous outing even earned him a place in the senior men’s Test squad against Bangladesh. Kumar had a marvellous time in first-class cricket as well with 237 wickets and 1176 runs from 54 games. Despite being picked by two IPL franchises twice, in the 2017 and 2021 editions, he is yet to feature in a game in the domestic T-20 league. Unfortunately, he has gone unsold in the current edition also despite having a moderate base price of Rs 20 lakh. These are clearly not good times for Saurabh Kumar as far as IPL is concerned.
