IPL 2021 Auction: Chris Morris Becomes The Most Expensive Player In The History Of IPL Auction

Chris Morris has now become the most expensive pick – Indian or overseas – in the IPL auction, ever, after Rajasthan Royals splurged out a whopping INR16.25 crore for the South African on Thursday at the IPL 2021 Auction.

Chriss Morris, who hasn’t played T20I for his national team since March 2019, created a series of bidding wars which started with Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore, who has released the all-rounder after buying him for 10 crore in the last auction.

MI and RCB were quick to raise their paddles indicating their profound want for Morris. At the price of 10 cr – for which Morris was bought last year and then offloaded – RCB left the table. In joined Rajasthan against Mumbai.

Mumbai, represented by Zaheer Khan, pulled out at 13.25 crore. It seemed that RR will grab Morris, but Preity Zinta for the now Punjab Kings (formerly Kings XI Punjab) jumped in with her massive purse.

Chris Morris played for Rajasthan in 2015

As Morris enjoyed watching this tussle, records tumbled as Rajasthan and Punjab kept raising their paddles. First Morris became the most expensive overseas player – beating Pat Cummins’ INR 15.5 crore bid by KKR – and then he became the costliest pick ever by crossing Yuvraj Singh’s price of  INR 16 crore from 2015 paid by the then Delhi Daredevils.

Finally, the inaugural champions had the hold of Morris for 16.25 crore and Morris is once again a Royal.

The Pretoria-born played for Rajasthan in 2015, bought for 1.4 crores then. Morris then was part of the Delhi franchise from 2016 to 2019 before playing for Virat Kohli’s side last year.

It came in as a surprise when Chris Morris was released by RCB despite having a brilliant season, at least with the ball picking up 11 wickets in 9 games at an economy of 6.63.

The all-rounder will bolster the RR bowling which looked timid and lacked support to Jofra Archer; he will also provide the late-order hitting as Jos Buttler can be slotted back at the top.

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