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Regardless of whatever events may have transpired during their IPL journeys, good or bad, it is always a special moment when life comes a full circle. Emotions like nostalgia, bitterness or regret are likely to run high when players return to IPL franchises they once represented in the past. On that note, here is a list of five such players who will do so at IPL 2020.
Five players who will return to their former franchises in IPL 2020:
1. Dale Steyn (RCB)
The Chinnaswamy crowd chanted his name when Dale Steyn used to run in during the first few years of the IPL. Even though the Royal Challengers Bangalore finished second from bottom that season, Steyn was an instant hit, claiming ten wickets in as many IPL games.
In the next edition of the IPL, which took place in South Africa where RCB finished as the runner-up, Steyn had a thumb injury and could only play three matches. However, he was back at his happy hunting ground in 2010, scalping 15 wickets in as many matches as RCB finished third.
Steyn’s best IPL years, however, came after his RCB stint. He picked up 32 wickets in 24 games for the erstwhile Deccan Chargers. His love affair with Hyderabad continued as he had his best IPL season in 2013, picking 19 wickets for the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
He returned 11 more wickets in the next IPL season. But when Yusuf Pathan smashed him for 26 runs in an over that season, the South African pacer's IPL career looked to be over.
Be it individual performance or the emergence of young fast bowlers, Dale Steyn has played a meagre nine IPL games since 2015, picking up seven wickets.
Just when he looked to be at the crossroad of his career, his first-ever franchise flew him to the Chinnaswamy Stadium as a cover for the injured Nathan Coulter-Nile in the middle of the 2019 IPL season. An inflammation in his shoulder, however, ruled him out after just two games.
Steyn was picked up again by RCB at his base price of INR 2 crore in last year’s IPL auctions. In the 2020 edition of the competition, a rejuvenated Steyn will be raring to provide solidity to the inexperienced RCB bowling lineup of Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj and Umesh Yadav. In the process, he will also look to improve his tally of 31 wickets in 30 games for the franchise.
2. Glenn Maxwell (Kings XI Punjab)
Glenn Maxwell’s IPL career has been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride. There were days when he would clobber any opposition. But there were also days when he would slash a short-and-wide delivery outside off stump straight to short third man.
Hardly anybody knew the Aussie in his first two years in the IPL, even though he was part of the Mumbai Indians squad which won the 2013 edition of the competition. Maxwell had played just five matches across two seasons, scoring only 42 runs.
The turning point, however, came when he was picked by the Kings XI Punjab for INR 6 crore in the 2014 auctions. Maxwell was the third-highest run-getter in the tournament, scoring 552 runs in 16 matches and single-handedly guided the Punjab outfit to their best-ever IPL finish.
Interestingly, the first half of that season was played in the UAE. What stood out was the pace at which Maxwell amassed his runs that season. Quite remarkably, his strike rate of 187.75 in IPL 2014 was the second-highest among all players who faced a minimum of four deliveries.
However, Maxwell's form drastically dropped in the subsequent IPL seasons as he accumulated just 324 runs across the 2015 and 2016 editions of the competition.
His form improved in IPL 2017 when he scored 310 runs in 14 matches but he was released by the Kings XI Punjab. Maxwell was then brought by his first-ever franchise, Delhi Daredevils (now called Delhi Capitals) in the 2018 IPL auctions but his returns were a meagre 169 runs in 12 matches as Delhi finished last that season.
For the record, Maxwell also has 16 IPL wickets under his belt, which makes him quite a viable pick for any side. And, not surprisingly, the Kings XI Punjab shelled out INR 10.75 crore to make him the second-most expensive buy in the IPL auctions last year.
So, another homecoming awaits Maxwell in the north of India to a team for whom he has scored 1186 runs of his 1397 IPL runs, the team which has made Glenn Maxwell the player he is today.
3. Kane Richardson (Royal Challengers Bangalore)
Indian fans remember him as the bowler who took five wickets against India in Canberra in 2016.
It was the same year Kane Richardson was drafted into the Royal Challengers Bangalore setup to play under the guidance of legendary paceman Allan Donald. But he only featured in 4 IPL matches that season where he picked up seven wickets, including an IPL career-best 3 for 13 against Rising Pune Supergiants.
The Aussie fast bowler's best IPL season came two years later when he bagged nine wickets in seven games for the Rajasthan Royals. His introduction to the IPL and Alan Donald. though, goes back to 2013 when he represented the Pune Warriors India in two games where he claimed as many wickets.
Richardson has 127 wickets in 107 T20 games, despite his modest record in the IPL. That might have prompted RCB to once again bring the Australian to their fold, buying him for INR 4 crore in the 2019 IPL auction, with his arrival likely to bolster an underwhelming RCB bowling attack.
4. Eoin Morgan (Kolkata Knight Riders)
Eoin Morgan can sweep a ball on off-stump to the boundary behind square on the off-side itself. He popularised the wristy reverse-sweep in the IPL during his 3-year stint with the Kolkata Knight Riders.
However, it is important to be noted that the World Cup-winning captain started his IPL journey with the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2010. It was not a season to remember, though, as he scored just 35 runs in six games.
The left hander then moved to KKR in 2011 but managed only 137 runs in 12 matches. Morgan, thus, had to warm the bench throughout KKR’s first IPL title-winning season in 2012. That was after he had decided to come to the IPL and work on his game after being dropped from the England Test squad to tour Sri Lanka.
Back in the KKR playing-XI in 2013, Morgan produced his best IPL season when he scored 307 runs in 14 matches but the Knights finished seventh in the table.
In the next edition of the IPL, he travelled south to be a part of Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, his performances too went south as he managed only 310 runs in 16 matches across the 2015 and 2016 seasons of the IPL even as other foreign talents like David Warner and Kane Williamson joined the franchise.
Morgan shifted base yet again joining Kings XI Punjab in 2017, but a lack of game-time meant that he scored only 65 runs in four games.
After missing the 2018 and 2019 editions of the IPL, Morgan led England to their first World Cup win in 2019.
Morgan is a player with tonnes of experience in T20 cricket, having amassed 6321 runs in 285 T20 games. No wonder, KKR spent INR 5.25 crore in last year’s auction in a bid to help them win more silverware.
5. Saurabh Tiwary (Mumbai Indians)
A player once everyone hailed as a ‘product of the IPL’, Saurabh Tiwary earned his maiden India callup after a stellar season with the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2010. After representing India in three matches that year, Tiwary did not get a chance to don the national colours agaon. For the record, he got a chance to bat in two of those matches and remained not out on both occasions.
Tiwari, however, couldn’t replicate the same level of performance in the subsequent seasons of the IPL after being picked up by the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2011 auctions. The left-hander from Jharkhand, with a Dhoni-esque hairstyle, scored just 487 runs in 40 IPL games for RCB between 2011 and 2013 before opportunities started drying up.
Tiwari left the Bangalore outfit after IPL 2013, spending two seasons with Delhi Daredevils and one with the Rising Pune Supergiants before returning to Mumbai Indians in 2017. However, with the Mumbai Indians middle order packed with the big-hitting Pandya brothers, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav, Tiwary played just one match in that edition where he scored 52 runs.
A decade has gone since he last played for India, and Saurabh Tiwary is not the same player he once used to be.
In 2011, RCB paid $1.6 million for the left-hander; MI have got him this season at his base price of Rs 50 lakh. After missing two consecutive IPL seasons, Tiwari would once again be trying to resurrect his career in the same camp from where his career had taken off.
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