The 2017 IPL player auction came to an end with the England duo of Ben Stokes and Tymal Mills being the costliest buys. The favourite for the costliest buy going into the auction, Stokes was bought by Rising Pune Supergiants for a whopping 14.5 crores INR while Tymal Mills was poached by RCB for 12 crores INR as they needed a good replacement for Mitchell Starc, who pulled out from the 2017 IPL just a day before the auction.
Out of the 352 players, a total of 66 players were sold and the franchises spent a total of 91.15 crores INR on all the players. The auction also had 286 players who were unsold. Let us take a look at a playing XI consisting of those players.
Note: We are following the same criteria as the IPL. Four overseas players and 7 Indians with one under-23 player.
Openers:
At the half-way stage, there were a lot of opening batsmen who remained unsold. Jason Roy, who was expected to fetch a huge amount at the auction was unsold when his name popped up for the first time earlier today. Along with Roy, his fellow England opener Alex Hales, Kiwi opening batsman Martin Guptill, Afghan's wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad, who is ranked 7th in the ICC T20I batsmen rankings, went unsold.
In the second round, Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab bought Roy and Guptill respectively while Shahzad and Hales remained unsold throughout the auctions. Jharkhand’s Virat Singh, who had a brilliant domestic season for his state side was not acquired by any of the eight teams and is eligible to feature in our unsold XI.
Virat made it to the XI ahead of Indian Test cricketers Cheteshwar Pujara and Abhinav Mukund and will bat at the top of the order in the unsold XI alongside Afghanistan’s Mohammad Shahzad. The Afghan was picked ahead of Hales just for his wicketkeeping skills and will don the keeper’s gloves in the XI as well.
Middle order:
There were only a few middle-order batsmen, who went under the hammer and majority of them were bought by the teams. We had a lot of options for the middle order batsmen before the start of the post-lunch session but fortunately for the players, they got picked by one of the teams. The likes of Manoj Tiwary, Saurabh Tiwary, Ishank Jaggi etc. were picked late in the auction.
As a result of this, we were left with S Badrinath, Sabbir Rahman and Manpreet Juneja to take responsibility in the middle order. Badrinath was a part of the IPL winning Chennai Super Kings team in the past and moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2015, where he didn’t get a single match to showcase his talents.
Badri, who is a veteran when it comes to playing in the IPL, is the right man for the crunch situations as he is known to anchor the innings by holding one end up when there is a batting collapse.
Bangladesh’s Sabbir Rahman went into the auction as a darkhorse but failed to fetch a bid. Juneja, on the other hand, had a brilliant domestic season with Gujarat but his name failed to come up in the IPL auction.
All-rounders:
This unsold XI has three good all-rounders who are vastly experienced in this format and will walk into any T20 playing XI. Sri Lanka’s Thisara Perera is a T20 specialist who plays club cricket all over the world. He has been a part of six IPL teams in the past and in the 2017 edition, he wasn’t picked by any of the 8 existing teams. He had his base price at 50 lakhs and yet he remained unsold.
A decade back, Irfan Pathan was one of India’s go-to players in all the three formats and was adjudged Man of the Match in the finals of 2007 World T20. 10 years later, he went unsold in the IPL player auctions.
Extra Cover: IPL Auction 2017 – 5 Indian cricketers with low base prices who fetched big money
In the last two years, he hardly got a chance to play in the IPL and after his exploits in the recently concluded Inter-Zonal T20s and Syed Mushtaq Ali tournaments, the fans expected him to fetch a decent price in the IPL auctions. To everyone’s surprise, the Baroda all-rounder remained unsold in the auction in spite of going under the hammer twice.
Abhishek Nayar was Mumbai’s best player in the 2016-17 domestic season and was not picked by any of the IPL teams in the auction. In fact, his name didn’t even go under the hammer as the teams were not interested in buying the all-rounder.
Spinners:
This is one area that will surprise you as the best spinner in this format, Imran Tahir, failed to get a team to play for in the 2017 IPL. Initially, it was quite surprising to see Delhi Daredevils releasing the South African spinner ahead of the auction as he was one of Delhi’s best bowlers in the last few seasons.
Tahir, who is the no. 1 bowler in the ODI and T20I format, had his base price as low as 50 lakhs, hoping that teams will not get him if his base price was higher. But, it was an eye-opener for everyone when the leg-spinner failed to fetch a single bid when his name went under the hammer twice.
The other spinner in the unsold XI, Pragyan Ojha is a multiple IPL winner and a successful bowler in the tournament. He had some issues with his bowling action last year and with the remodelled bowling action, Ojha was not the same old bowler as he was before. This might be the reason why the slow left-arm spinner was unsold in the IPL auction.
Pacer:
When every Indian player in the IPL auction had a lesser base price, Ishant Sharma put himself in the 2 crore INR base price category and probably paid the price for it. With the exception of Ishant, no other Indian player had a base price in excess of 50 lakhs and the lanky pacer was not picked by any of the teams of the 2017 IPL.
Though this might come as a surprise to the fans, it was Ishant’s fault that he had a higher base price. Without a doubt, he is a quality fast bowler, but the teams were not looking to splash their money on the players as most of them will come back to the auction pool next year.
“Ishant Sharma shouldn’t have kept his base price at Rs 2 crore. Firstly, he doesn’t play for India in T20s and not considered a white ball bowler. He is only playing Test cricket. Ideally, he should have shed his ego and kept his base price in the range of Rs 30 lakh. Varun Aaron gained just because of that even though Ishant probably has more quality,” an IPL team boss who was at the auction said.
Had Ishant given himself a lower base price, he would have been poached by any of the 8 teams ahead of the 2017 edition.
Also Read: Here's why Ishant Sharma went unsold in the 2017 IPL Auction
IPL 2017 auctions: unsold XI
There were nearly 286 players who were unsold in the 2017 IPL auction. Forming a playing XI comprising them is not an easy job as there are chances that one player had to miss out to maintain the team balance. The case is no different with our unsold XI as few players were overlooked keeping the balance in mind.
The names featuring in the list of unsold players is not their fault as the franchisees might have had other ideas coming into the auction. Every player, who went unsold at the auction is a professional and will look to perform well in the upcoming months and earn themselves a spot in an IPL team ahead of the next season.
The playing XI:
Mohammad Shahzad (overseas)
Virat Singh (under 23)
S Badrinath (c)
Sabbir Rahman (overseas)
Manpreet Juneja
Thisara Perera (overseas)
Irfan Pathan
Abhishek Nayar
Ishant Sharma
Pragyan Ojha
Imran Tahir (overseas)
12th man: Mitchell Santner
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