Indian Cricket’s IPL Shockwaves

From a controversial choice of venue to an unexpected captaincy shockwave, to the jaw dropping Rs 45 crore spent on two Australian fast bowlers at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions held in Dubai, the League has shown that it might be more than a decade and a half old, but it is not short on shocks or surprises.

One could argue that this IPL auction in particular got more than it bargained for. For one, it managed, once again, to eclipse previous records for the huge prices at which players have been bought and sold. But that was not the only matter hanging heavy in the air in Dubai where the IPL auctions went for the first time, even as the Rohit Sharma decision continued to rule the airwaves.

While the IPL fans and pundits were still digesting the decision by Mumbai Indians to not only bring back Hardik Pandya from the Gujarat Titans, but bringing him back as captain in lieu of the five time championship captain, Rohit Sharma, the IPL auctions were already causing a flutter, on the sidelines.

For one, for the first time in its history, the IPL auctions moved out of India. The IPL auctions might consider itself a grand success abroad, but it is going to find it hard to justify how it appeased fans abroad by taking the event to Dubai, when it is not even being held in a stadium.

However, the Rohit Sharma drama managed to keep the IPL auctions venue controversy under the radar, allowing eventually for the free flowing cash registers to briefly relieve the angst and confusion amongst the rank and file of fans and players alike.

The IPL auctions are usually surrounded by the usual suspects. The headlines find it hard to explain the logic of some of the franchisee owners with deep pockets who choose to spend extravagantly on just one or two players. They are then at odds to justify the staggering sums that are not always in proportion to talent or performance.

One might well witness a similar scenario when the IPL season 2024 comes around given how the purses and strategies were waylaid on a handful of players. Even the fact that the ICC Twenty20 World Cup would soon follow the IPL, did not seem to deter the franchisees from bidding for their favourite players.

Steve Smith might have felt something of an anomaly given that he did not receive a single bid while the Australian captain, Pat Cummins, found himself grabbing the headlines for becoming the first player to command a fee in excess of Rs 20 crore.

Intense bidding ensued often for more overseas players, and Cummins’ case was no exception. Just when it seemed that he would remain the highest sold player on the day, his fellow fast bowler and compatriot, Mitchell Starc, became the surprise player of the day, drawing not only furious bidding between several times but eventually being sold for a whopping Rs 24.5 crores.

If the Australians were the runaway headlines, there were smaller surprises. West Indies’ Rovman Powell was the first player to go under the hammer and the bid was immediately high and intense, with the Rajasthan Royals picking him up for Rs 7.4 crores. As speculated, Australia’s Travis Head was something of an interest and it was not surprising, though the amount might have been at Rs 6.8 crores, when he was bought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad.

What began with a thunderous start would take on colossal figures by the end of the auctions, the surprising coming thick and fast.

New Zealand’s wonder boy, Rachin Ravindra, who was thrown into the deep end by his team during the recently concluded ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, seemed to top the charts in terms of popular frontrunners. However, proving a point that the World Cup was not necessarily an audition for some of the 333 players on the auction list, Ravindra was bought for a relatively modest amount of 1.8 crores after an initial starting bid of 50 lakhs by the Chennai Super Kings.

However, the Chennai Super Kings practically threw the kitchen sink to ensure that Ravindra’s sturdier compatriot, a bludgeoning workhorse, Daryl Mitchell, was theirs by the end of the auction. Rs 14 crores might not be a bank balance one might have associated with Mitchell nor the frenetic bidding. But it was the tall New Zealander who might have well been the talking point of the day if not for the Australian bonanza.

Such have been the turbulent waves rippling through even before the auctions that questioning the logic of the franchisees to spend such amounts on overseas players when only four can play at any time has become secondary.

Ahead of the auctions, the Mumbai Indians used the trade window to not only bring Hardik Pandya back into their fold which was a surprising enough decision given that the Indian all-rounder had been the captain of the Gujarat Titans for the past couple of years since the franchisee joined ranks with the IPL.

The Mumbai Indians dropped a bombshell on their fans and cricket pundits when they announced that they were doing away with their captain with whom they had won five IPL titles.

Pandya who had been associated for seven years with the Mumbai Indians since 2015 and called them home had a golden opportunity to showcase his captaincy skills which he did with aplomb, winning Gujarat Titans their title on debut and then leading the team as defending champions to the final of this year’s IPL.

Therefore, it seemed as something of a surprise decision that Pandy would want to leave a winning team, even for a suspected sum of 15 crores as part of the trade deal. However, it would seem that the deal might have had the caveat that would have seen Rohit Sharma pushed aside in preference for Pandya to continue his captaincy stature.

That the winds of change have been blowing for sometime when it comes to the Indian team was well known. However, the injury to Pandya midway through the World Cup might have thrown a spanner in the works to announce a full fledged handover of the change of guard ahead of the tour to South Africa, allowing India to once again play something of musical chairs when it comes to Indian captaincy, trying on the likes of Suryakumar Yadav and KL Rahul for size.

However, what was not expected, though even the Chennai Super Kings have not been immune to this captaincy saga when it came to Mahendra Singh Dhoni vis-à-vis going against their fans popular decision, was that Rohit Sharma’s seat in the Mumbai Indians team dugout was in danger any time soon.

With fewer runs under the belt and Pandya’s stars on the rise, the Mumbai Indians perhaps saw a worthy gamble, in keeping with the nature of the player auctions, to make this trade with that deal. It is a stunning and yet certainly a bold move given that this team had been in the doldrums before such a captaincy decision turned the fortunes around for the then most expensive IPL team.

While the Mumbai Indians and Rohit Sharma might wonder if it is curtains, more humiliating patterns have also emerged in the past when Dhoni was reinstated as captain midway through 2022 even as his retirement speculation has abounded. Count on the IPL to keep the drama going.