IPL 2018 Auction: 5 reasons why Colin Munro is the best buy

The time for buying players is done and the time for evaluation begins! During the auctions, the fans were excited about the players who would join their teams. And now, after the auction has been concluded, there is an evaluation going on about the hits and the misses.

I will refrain from talking about the misses. I will, instead, focus on the hits this time. And one of the greatest hits of this IPL auction was the purchase of Colin Munro. The left-handed New Zealander was bought for a puny INR 1.9 crore by the Delhi Daredevils.

While his purchase might not have made waves like Jaydev Unadkat’s and Ben Stokes’, it is perhaps the best buy of the IPL 2018 auction—and here are 5 reasons why…

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#5 Quick scorer

Let’s get straight to it: Colin Munro is a man that scores run at a pace faster than the speed of Barry Allen AKA the Flash. This is a man that has a strike-rate of 98.79 in 74 first-class innings. Yes, first-class… those 4-day games that cricketers play as mock exams to display their Test credentials.

In the ODIs, his strike-rate is 108.29 after 31 innings. He might have only scored 849 runs in his ODI career thus far, but he has done it at a brisk pace. And what about T20s? Nothing special, just a strike-rate of 146.78 and an average of 29.96.

He mostly plays in the top order and can give Delhi Daredevils a lot of quick runs up top. With him on the other end, Gautam Gambhir can play his natural game of taking time to settle, before playing his flamboyant signature shots.

#4 Match-winner

Munro is a match-winner

The thing is, New Zealand’s recent T20I series is a big testament to the reliance they have on the left-handed batsman. The Kiwis ripped apart the West Indians, who are the two-time World T20 champions, and in that series, Munro made over 200 runs in the 3 T20I games.

Against Pakistan, however, he played in two T20Is and did well in one of them, scoring 49 not-out. And guess what, New Zealand won that game. In the next game, he couldn’t make an impact and in the third match, he couldn’t play altogether due to an injury.

And Pakistan won in both of those games. So you see, he is a player that can win matches for his team with the force of his bat. The days he bats well for the Daredevils, they are almost certain to win those games.

#3 Handy with the ball

A decent bowler

Now he is not an absolute all-rounder per se, but he has his talents with the ball. The New Zealander bowls decent medium pacers that sometimes helps his teams by breaking well-set partnerships.

His numbers are also decent, to be fair. He has taken 15 wickets in 344 balls with a strike-rate of 22 wickets-per-balls. This means that he takes a wicket in every 4 four overs, which makes him a wicket-per-game bowler.

This gives Delhi an option to use him with the ball. While he might give away a lot of runs—he is quite an expensive bowler—he can certainly take wickets at important times.

#2 Innovative

Innovation means success in T20s

This goes a long way in becoming a successful player in T20s. While the format might be criticized by Test cricket connoisseurs for its limited time and lack of technicality, it has certainly made the players very innovative.

Batsmen might not require the best techniques to thrive in it, but they sure do need innovation to succeed in the format. Innovation is the ability to do new things and Colin Munro has that ability in abundance.

The Kiwi star can hit the ball almost all around the park. This ability almost always confuses the bowler into trying new things, resulting in them losing their line and length. For the opposition captain, setting the field for such a player also borders on nightmare-ish.

#1 Man in form comes for a steal

He is in form

Make no mistake here, Colin Munro is a man in form. Since 2017, Munro has played in 12 T20I games and has scored 497 runs in them. In contrast, in the 28 T20I games prior to that, he scored 500 runs.

This just goes to show the kind of form that he is in right now. All of his 3 centuries have come in the last one year and his performances with the Kiwis earned him the top spot in the T20I batsmen’s ranking. This place was snatched from him by Babar Azam yesterday (29th January 2018), but he is still the fourth best batsman in the T20I circuit according to rankings.

With the IPL just around the corner, Munro could be expected to carry his form to India—and that will just give Delhi the push needed to finally win the title. And at only 1.9 crores, he is the best buy of the IPL 2018 auction.