The highest sold on the first day of the IPL mega-auction was none other than Rishabh Pant. Lucknow Super Giants broke the bank to get their man for INR 27 crore, which made the stumper the most expensive player in IPL history. If you have seen Pant play the way he does, this amount should not surprise you. He is a complete package: batter, wicket-keeper, even a captain. He easily checks every box.
Next on the list is Shreyas Iyer, who was bought for INR 26.75 crore just a few minutes before Pant’s record-breaking trade. Punjab Kings splurged to get Iyer on board. This makes sense too. They needed a captain and had the highest amount in their purse among the franchises. Naturally, they decided to go as far as they could, which is quite far from other teams, to buy Iyer.
But nothing could have prepared anyone for the third-highest buy of the day one. It was KKR going all out for Venkatesh Iyer. And before you say it, No. No one confused him for another Iyer. KKR spent a whopping INR 23.75 crore for the pace-bowling all-rounder who has only eleven international caps next to his name. Having many more experienced all-rounders on the roster to be bought, why did the defending champions decide to go overboard for a rookie all-rounder? The answer to this is very suspiciously simple: KKR wanted to maintain its core.
KKR entered the auction being one of the two teams without any RTM options. This means they had retained all the players they were allowed to which included Rinku Singh (INR 13 crore), Varun Chakravarthy (INR 12 crore), Sunil Narine (INR 12 crore), Andre Russell (INR 12 crore), Harshit Rana (INR 4 crore), and Ramandeep Singh (INR 4 crore).
Apparently, the team thought it was too risky to let players like Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, and Ramandeep Singh enter the market. So, instead, they retained them and planned on using as much as they could to get Venkatesh back. That is what the team’s CEO Venky Mysore confirmed too. The main aim was to rope in the main players either by hook or by crook.
“Auctions are this way only. At the end of the day it’s about the player you want and the type of player you want in the set-up. Of course, prices have a meaning within a certain band and so it surprises you all the time. When you have salary caps like this going up (INR 120 crore compared to 100 crore last auction), obviously [player] prices will also expand.” KKR CEO justified the splurge on Venkatesh Iyer.
As per the CEO, this purchase will not affect KKR’s plans for other players as buying openers like Anrich Nortje and Quinton de Kock for a total of INR 10 crore has balanced their wild spending on Iyer tremendously.
“For us it was about trying to keep our core. We’ve kept six players and brought 2-3 players back from last year. that was always the kind of thinking and as far as he (Venkatesh) is concerned we definitely didn’t want to find ourselves in a situation where we may not be able to bring him back. But it always balances itself. When you look at Quinton de Kock (INR 3.60 crore) and Nortje (INR 6.50 crore) that we’ve picked, it balances off in many ways. On an overall basis, it all works out.” Mysore mentioned.
KKR earlier released their captain from the previous season, Shreyas Iyer. Venkatesh Iyer will replace him to lead the side, and from what has been heard from him, he could not be more ready to captain his team to defend the trophy.
“I had the opportunity to captain the side in Nitish Rana’s absence when he was unfortunately injured, and I was the vice-captain as well,” Venkatesh said following his earth-shattering deal.
“I’ve always believed that captaincy is just a tag, but leadership is about creating an environment where everyone feels they can play for this team and contribute. If given the responsibility, I would be more than happy to take it on. Together, we will aim to defend the championship and continue our winning campaign.”
KKR now has INR 10 crore left in their purse which they will need to spend on the remaining 12 of their squad members.
