Top 5 Most Expensive Players in IPL 2024 Auction on December 19: The D-Day for the IPL 2024 Auctions, albeit a mini one, December 19, 2023 is just just one sleep away. The preparations for the event are underway as the BCCI plans to stage it in Dubai’s Coca Cola Arena on Tuesday. Notably, it’s the first time that the BCCI has moved the IPL auctions out of the country.
IPL auctions have had their share in making hype for the upcoming season of the IPL. All the buzz around players getting sold, dropped and traded has played a part in the success of the Indian Premier League (IPL). More so, because the IPL auction somewhat paints a clear picture as to what the team has strategised for the tournament.
The IPL 2024 Auction are preceeded by a World Cup event, although ODI, so there will be a manupulation factor which will be derived from the players’ performance in the recently held World Cup in India. The top stars of the event are almost certain fetch a handsome pay from their respective franchises.
This edition of the mini-auction will see 333 players go under the hammer. Of those, 119 are overseas and the rest (214) are domestic players. A maximum of 70 player slots are to be filled during the cash-filled event with a total of INR 262.48 Crore purse amongst the 10 IPL teams.
Among the 333 registered players for the auction, the top players include the likes of Pat Cummins, Harry Brook, Harshal Patel, Shardul Thakur, Travis Head, Steve Smith and Gerald Coetzee among others.
Top 5 Most Expensive Players in IPL 2024 Auction on December 19
It is often a case that the IPL has been generously rewarding for a player who knows a bit of both bowling and batting. The all-rounders have seen their stocks rise since the inception of the tournament. Since 2012 IPL, the most expensive player each year is an all-rounder, barring a few seasons.
The last season saw English all-rounder Sam Curran go bonkers during the auction with him fetching a whopping INR 18.5 Crores from Punjab Kings.
Pat Cummins: The Australian ODI World Cup winning captain, Pat Cummins, though, hasn’t enjoyed a excessive out of the box success in the IPL, surely he is among the top 5 players who can induce bidding war between the teams during auction. His skills are second to none with him being the most effective in the powerplays and middle overs in the innings. Moreover, Cummins can play handy cameos late in the order to provide a fitting end to the innings.
Mitchell Starc: Mitchell Starc has been the guy who has been an apple of everyone’s eye no matter what his mischieves are. The pacer’s stocks have been on a rise for many years and they do not know how to fall. Though most of the times Stac has remained out of the IPL to manage his workload, his abilities with the ball in hand have kept all the IPL franchises in a loop.
The Aussie pacer can deliver in the powerplays and even in death overs – two of the most challenging phases of the innings. He is equipped to delivery both, conventional swing and reverse swing, at high speeds. Moreover, he is a handy batter to tonk a few hits here and there at the end of the innings.
Shardul Thakur: There are not many Indian players who offer fast bowling abilities with some batting skills and Shardul Thakur is one of the few who fits the criteria. Often critisised to leak runs, Shardul Thakur’s most potent weapon is his slower bouncers and wobble seam delivery. He has the knack for producing wickets when nothing works for a team. To add to this, he has the element of batting down the order and increase the scoring rate.
Rachin Ravindra: With teams struggling to find a worthy opener, New Zealand batter Rachin Ravindra has emerged as the solution for them. However, this is just not it. Ravindra has also showed his potential to bat anywhere in the innings be it top order, middle order or down the order. To add cherry on the cake, the Kiwi can deliver a few quick overs in between giving his captain an added advantage of a fingerspinner.
Gerald Coetzee: The recent ODI World Cup turned out to be fruitful for the young players and Gerald Coetzee was one of them, who enjoyed his outing in the coveted tournament. The Protea pacer has the knack of hitting consistently 140 Kmph and knocking off the batter in any phase of the innings. Despite playing just eight games in the recently held World Cup, Coetzee managed to feature in the fifth place in the list of top wicket takers, which shows his consistently in picking wickets regularly.
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For more details head to IPL’s official website.