Auction Round-Up: Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders

Royal Challengers Bangalore 

The Royal Challengers Bangalore had the most amount of paddle lifting to do in this 2021 IPL auction, having spent the most amount of money amongst all teams. RCB landed 2 of the Top 3 most expensive buys at the auction and spent more than 80% of their available purse on two players, Glenn Maxwell and Kyle Jamieson.

The middle-order was a big worry for RCB in IPL 2020 and they ended the season with the lowest boundary percentage out of all the 8 IPL teams. To solve that issue, RCB went after Australia’s hard-hitting all-rounder Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell had an extraordinarily poor IPL 2020 for KXIP and has struggled to recreate his performances for Australia in this competition. Nevertheless, RCB has put their faith in the Big Show and paid Rs.14.25 Cr for his services.

In terms of fast bowling, they did look to bring back Chris Morris after releasing him for INR 10 Cr last season but were outbid by Rajasthan Royals. The player they did end up signing is New Zealand pace bowler Kyle Jamison for an astronomical INR 15 Cr.

The other players they picked up in the auction were Dan Christian from Australia and domestic players such as Sachin Baby, Rajat Patidar and Mohammed Azharuddeen.

Probable XI: Devdutt Padikkal, Josh Philippe, Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Washington Sundar, Harshal Patel, Kyle Jamieson, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj

Kolkata Knight Riders

The Kolkata Knight Riders had the lowest purse coming into this auction, and the KKR table was inactive for most of the day’s bidding. Given that most of their first XI was already settled, their primary objective for this auction was to find suitable back-up options.

They spent INR 3.2 Cr to get Shakib Al Hasan who was previously part of their IPL winning squads in 2012 and 2014. Shakib provides some experience in the middle order for KKR, is an extremely handy bowler in the middle overs and can also be a viable replacement for Sunil Narine. The other spinner KKR have chosen to go for is IPL veteran Harbhajan Singh. Harbhajan Singh is a good squad option to have and he could be used in place of Sunil Narine in the XI if KKR would wish to field two overseas pacers in Pat Cummins and Lockie Ferguson.

They have also signed the 2016 IPL Final Man of the Match Ben Cutting for INR 75 Lakh. Cutting can hit an extremely long ball, bowl a few overs and is a good insurance policy to have if Andre Russell faces more injury issues as he did in IPL 2020. KKR has also signed some back-up batsman in the form of Karun Nair (INR 50 Lakh) and Sheldon Jackson (INR 20 Lakh)

Probable XI: Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy