In a bid to come up with a winning combination, the GMR-owned Delhi Daredevils did some serious spending at the 2016 Indian Premier League Auction on Thursday having spent Rs. 29.8 crore on just six players before the *Accelerated Process, the majority of which went to South African allrounder Chris Morris and uncapped Pawan Negi, who went laughing to the bank to deposit Rs. 7 crore and Rs. 8.5 crore respectively.
If that hadn't baffled some of Delhi fans, the Rs. 4.2 crore salaray package offered to Caribbean allrounder Carlos Brathwaite and Rs 4 core to uncapped batsman Karun Nair had them scratching their chin.
Morris had a base price of Rs. 50 lakh, Brathwaite Rs. 30 lakh, Nair Rs 10 lakh, and Negi Rs. 30 lakh.
Such mind-boggling sum paid for little-known players by a team that is struggling to stitch together a winning squad was not something fans in the Capital were expecting out of auction. On top of that, two of them - Morris and Brathwaite - are foreigners and at risk of falling prey to the four-foreigners cap on the playing eleven.
Comparing the above price tags, the Rs. 4.2 crore spent on wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson, who had a base price of Rs. 2 crore, makes much more sense. He has done well for Rajasthan Royals in the past and being an Indian is available for the entire season.
At the end of the day, the Kerala player can't be bracketed under bad buys at all.
"I never expected this. I am happy to hear the news and I will perform to the best of my abilities for my team," Samson told PTI.So is the case with Mohit Sharma, though at Rs. 6.5 crore he might sound a bit overpriced to many. But he has been part of the most successful IPL team, - the Chennai Super Kings and one Dhoni in the past liked falling back upon while captaining both India and CSK.
Mohit will be seen bowling for Kings XI Punjab now.
Another surprise that led to a jaw-dropping response was the price tag attached to unknown Murugan Ashwin, a player from the Tamil Nadu who hadn't been heard of much before today's auction.
He had a base price of Rs. 10 lakh, which was upped in a bidding battle to Rs. 4.5 crore by Rising Pune Supergiants.
Barinder Sran bagged his maiden IPL contract on Saturday, and his pay cheque of Rs. 1.2 crore from Sunrisers Hyderabad is an amount that has resulted from his successful debut for India on the recent tour of Australia.
Among the India veterans, while swing bowler Praveen Kumar pocketed a more than decent amount of Rs. 3.5 crore from debutants Gujarat Lions, Irfan Pathan will consider himself a bit unfortunate to go for his base price of Rs. 1 crore.
Prolific England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Butler, who hit a century in an ODI against South Africa recently, also made news with his Rs. 3.8-crore contract from Mumbai.
*An Accelerated Process means the unsold players out of those auctioned are brought back on the table at the request of franchises.
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