IPL releases list of players to go under the hammer in the 2021 Auction

The Indian Premier League has released the list of players that have registered for the 2021 IPL auction which takes place on the 18th of February in Chennai. A total of 1097 players have registered for the auction – 814 Indians and 283 foreign players – but only a maximum of 61 players can be bought as each IPL team can only have a maximum of 25 players.

The major omission from the list of players signed up for the Auction is Mitchell Starc, who hasn’t featured in the IPL since 2015. The left-arm pacer has decided to opt-out from the IPL auction to manage his workload and limit the time spent in bio-secure bubbles. Starc is set to play a major part in the T20 World Cup and Ashes later in the year and that would have been a factor in his decision to opt-out of the IPL. The other surprising omission is that of Joe Root, who recently scored a double century against India in his 100th Test Match. Root has opted out of the IPL for the second year in a row and among English players who have previously played in the IPL, Harry Gurney and Tom Banton have also not registered for the auction. 

The players set to attract the biggest attention at the auction are the Australian batting trio of Steve Smith, Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell who were each released by their respective teams after IPL 2020. The other Australian who is set for a big payday is fast bowler Jhye Richardson. Richardson was the highest wicket-taker in the recently concluded Big Bash with 29 wickets. In the absence of Starc, Richardson is one of the marquee overseas pacers going under the hammer and will be in high demand after leading the Perth Scorchers to the final of the Big Bash.

Shakib Al Hasan is set to return to the IPL auction after his suspension and has set his base price at the highest amount of INR 2 crore. Other players who have listed their base price at INR 2 crore are Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Kedar Jadhav, Harbhajan Singh, Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Liam Plunkett, Jason Roy, Mark Wood and Colin Ingram.

Other prominent names in the auction include the current number one ranked batsman in T20I cricket Dawid Malan and South African pacer Chris Morris who was released by RCB this year after going for INR 10 crore in the 2020 auction. There are 21 capped Indian players in the auction including the likes of Umesh Yadav (INR 1 Crore), Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, Shivam Dube and Varun Aaron (all at INR 50 lakh).

One of the notable players going under the hammer is Arjun Tendulkar, son of Sachin Tendulkar. Arjun has recently made his debut for Mumbai in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament and has listed his base price at INR 20 lakh. The other interesting name returning to the IPL auction is S Sreesanth, who was previously banned from the competition following the spot-fixing scandal in 2013. 

The teams with the biggest purses and the most work to do at this 2021 auction are Royal Challengers Bangalore who have 13 available slots and INR 35.9 crore in their purse and Kings XI Punjab who have 9 available slots and INR 53.2 crore in their purse.