IPL 2020 Auction: 3 most surprising releases ahead of the auction

The IPL franchises are already preparing themselves for the auction next month. Many would have expected this season’s auction to be a rather low-key affair as a major overhaul awaits us in 2021. However, the list of players released by each team demonstrates the fact that this may not be the case.

Many sides released numerous players, raising a few eyebrows. However, most of them had reasons to back their move as the players were either underperforming or demanded too high a fee to be kept in the roster. One cannot also rule out the fact that quite a few teams would look to buy back their released players during the auctions for a lesser fee maybe. However, here we elaborate on the three most surprising releases ahead of the auction.

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#3 Piyush Chawla

Piyush Chawla

Piyush Chawla has been an ardent servant for the Kolkata Knight Riders over the years as he played for six seasons with them and was a vital part of their victorious campaign of 2014. Overall, he assumed many roles in both the Eden Garden decks; the earlier one that assisted spinners and the newer one that facilitates more pace and bounce.

Earlier, he used to be used as a wicket-taking option in the middle overs but as time progressed, Chawla donned the role of a senior bowler who would bowl in the field restriction overs and use his wrong-uns to cramp the batsmen for space and room early on. He took 66 wickets for KKR in six seasons and with the team looking to move on, they released Chawla among other biggies as well. Maybe, the leg-spinner could still have been used as a squad option at times.

#2 Chris Lynn

Chris Lynn

In addition to Chawla, the KKR also let go of Chris Lynn who they had acquired for a majestic fee of 9.6 crores earlier. Lynn’s image was that of a very destructive batsman as his big-hitting abilities were much revered among the fans. He was banked upon to provide quick starts to the team regularly but as time progressed, his hitting powers regressed and a reason for that could be his persistent shoulder injury that kept him on the sidelines for a while.

Lynn has curbed his natural instinct in the past couple of seasons for KKR and played the role of an anchor to Sunil Narine. But, with Shubman Gill making yards of progress as a full-fledged top-order batsman, KKR took this particular decision to release and free Lynn of his services. Regardless of that, a long-standing association coming to an end doesn’t gauge well amongst the fans and hence it is believed that the Australian could have been given a chance to rediscover his old touch in the coming season. He has scored over 1200 runs in 40 innings for KKR.

#1 David Miller

David Miller

David Miller endured a mixed time during his tenure with Kings XI Punjab whom he even led for 6 games in 2016. However, ‘Killer Miller’ as he is fondly known, blew hot and cold during that period.

In the 2013 and 2014 seasons, his strike rate was 164.56 and 149.16. However, that drastically dropped in the later seasons and it looked like KXIP might just get rid of his services to start from scratch again. However, it is not the first time that the Punjab-based team is looking to rebuild the team after dismissing the majority of their squad.

They have fallen prey to such a practice before and always end up with a lopsided, misbalanced team as such. Hence, it would have been rather advisable for them to stick with an experienced campaigner in Miller as they gradually construct an entirely new-look team under the tutelage of Anil Kumble. The left-hander has played for the franchise since 2012 and scored 1850 runs in 77 innings.