Auction Round-Up: Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings

Auction Round-Up: Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings

Sunrisers Hyderabad

The Sunrisers Hyderabad had very little to do coming into the auction given that they had already retained 22 players from last season. David Warner’s side only had INR 10.75 Cr to spend on three players and hence their auction strategy was mostly dictated by what the other teams around them do.

It was clear that their middle order was something they wanted to address and they went hard after Shivam Dube and K Gowtham but were ultimately outbid by Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings. The players they eventually bought were Kedar Jadhav (INR 2 Cr) and J Suchith (INR 30 Lakh). Kedar Jadhav had a disappointing season for CSK in IPL 2020, scoring only 62 runs in five innings, but is an experienced campaigner capable of filling in at number 6 in place of the likes of Abhishek Sharma or Priyam Garg. The one foreign player they bought in the auction was Mujeeb Ur Rahman for his base price of INR 1.5 Cr. Mujeeb adds more mystery spin to this SRH team and can be used in tandem with his Afghanistan team-mate Rashid Khan on turning tracks in Delhi and Chennai.

Probable XI: David Warner, Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Kedar Jadhav, Vijay Shankar, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan

Punjab Kings

The newly branded Punjab Kings had the largest purse coming into this IPL auction and had plenty of holes to fill in the squad, especially in the fast-bowling department. Punjab had one of the worst death overs records in 2020 and it was clear they wanted to address that in this auction. They bid heavily for the likes of Kyle Jamieson and Chris Morris but eventually lost out to Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals respectively. They landed up buying The Australian duo of Jhye Richardson for INR 14 Cr and Riley Meredith for INR 8 Cr. Richardson and Meredith have performed impressively in the recently concluded Big Bash with Richardson ending the season as the highest wicket-taker with 29 scalps.

Punjab was also in the market for all-rounders having released Glenn Maxwell and James Neesham after the last IPL. They ended up signing Moises Henriques who was with the team in 2019 for INR 4.2 Cr as well as West Indian Fabian Allen at a bargain price of INR 75 Lakh.

Punjab have also strengthened their top-order batting unit with the purchase of number one ranked T20I batsman Dawid Malan for a price of INR 1.5 Cr. The other marquee buy for the Kings in this auction was Tamil Nadu batsman Shah Rukh Khan for a whopping price of INR 5.25 Cr. Shah Rukh Khan was instrumental in Tamil Nadu’s recent win in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament and can be extremely explosive with the bat at the death.

Probable XI: Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Mandeep Singh, Deepak Hooda, Shah Rukh Khan, Jhye Richardson, Chris Jordan, Ravi Bishnoi, M Shami