Phil-Salt. (Photo Source: Twitter)
A mini-auction was held for the 17th season of the Indian Premier League where 333 players went under the hammer. 30 of these places were taken by foreign players and 42 Indian players held their breaths as their names were flashed on TV screens. A staggering sum of INR 230.45 crores was paid on the sale of these 72 players.
Expectedly so, the Australian players saw the bidding wars going for them as they soared for new records. Australian skipper Pat Cummins and left-handed pacer Mitchell Starc saw teams going gaga over them as they each fetched more than INR 20 crores.
However, as new records were being made and old records were being broken, a few renowned faces went unnoticed. Surprisingly, this list included a few Indian faces while some big foreign names as well. Fans were left bewildered with some of these names not being picked either by their teams or any other franchises as well.
Here is a list of the top five surprisingly unsold players in the IPL Auction 2024:
5. Phil Salt
Phil Salt is a 27-year-old, swashbuckling wicketkeeper-batter from the British nation. Having played 216 T20 matches so far, he has scored a total of 5136 runs at a strike rate of 153. He has smashed two centuries and 32 half-centuries in these games as well. He was a part of this tournament’s 2023 campaign for Delhi Capitals but was released ahead of the auctions.
What came as a surprise was, he performed brilliantly representing his nation just before the auctions. He smashed a century for his team a couple of days before the auction and one on that very day too, but still failed to garner enough attention to get picked.
4. Sarfaraz Khan
Once retained in the Royal Challenger’s Bangalore side before the Mega-auction, Sarfaraz khan carried huge responsibilities on his shoulders. A sight which seems not so long ago, with just a base price of INR 20 lakhs, he still went unsold under the hammer.
At the age of just 26, he still has a long road ahead of him where he can formulate the path to already achieved success. He has mediocre stats to display ahead of his name but immense talent below those stats which he would be looking forward to putting to good use.
3. Steve Smith
Australia star Steve Smith, who once led the side where MS Dhoni played as just another player for the first time in the history of the Indian Premier League, surprisingly did not find any buyers this year. Though considered a little slow for this format of the game, Smith is still a huge name in the World Cricket.
This move marks a huge shift in the mindset of the players and team management in the T20 format of the game as safety and regularity have been replaced with explosivity which Smith fails to bring to the table.
2. Karun Nair
Where franchises were going frenzy on finding Indian batters for their playing 11, a big name from the Indian circuit was missing from every team’s list. An experienced yet stable name who can play various situations, Karun Nair has been a big name that has been off the radar for a while now.
In an era where sheer power has been the dominant force in the T20s, Karun is someone who relies on timing and strokeplay. After being the youngest player to score a triple hundred in the longest format of the game, Nair has been lost from the ground and has been failing to find form.
1. Josh Hazlewood
Once regarded as a one-format player due to consistent line and length, Josh Hazlewood has come a long way in the last couple of years making his way from red-ball cricket to white-ball cricket as well. He was one name that came as a big surprise for all as he went unsold in this year’s auction.
The real reason he went unsold has been his unavailability for more than half of the season as he and his wife are expecting the birth of their first child. Franchises spent a lot on his other teammates and would have done the same subject to his availability for the entire season.
