IPL Auction 2024: Gautam Gambhir Justifies Buying Mitchell Starc For 24.75 Crores After Social Media Trolling

2-time IPL winning captain with Kolkata Knight Riders Gautam Gambhir feels that the price KKR paid for signing Australian pacer Mitchell Starc was justified given the plethora of experience and expertise he brings along with him.

Starc will be returning to the Indian Premier League for the first time since season 8 when he last appeared for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2015. The 2024 edition will be his 3rd IPL season and the amount of time Starc missed in that while has only made him a better and a much more experienced cricketer.

Since 2015, the 33-year-old has won 3 major ICC trophies with Australia – the 2021 ICC T20 World Cup, the 2023 World Test Championship, and the 50-over Cricket World Cup last month. One of the major reasons why Starc remained out of the IPL circuit was to focus on International cricket but his much-awaited comeback is now just a few months away.

When his name was put by Auctioneer Mallika Sagar yesterday, there was a sense of excitement and nervousness within the Coca-Cola arena. After all, who wouldn’t want a senior pacer like Mitchell Starc to lead their bowling attack?

Franchises like Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Titans, and Kolkata Knight Riders looked very serious in buying the Australian. The bidding war kept on intensifying with all 3 teams not willing to let go of the 2-time World Champion.

It continued until a point when KKR raised the price to 24.75 Crores which eventually forced RCB and GT to give up on the chase. Mentor Gautam Gambhir and team owner Venky Mysore had the last laugh after Mallika Sagar closed the deal to make Mitchell Starc the most expensive entity ever.

Both of them were truly delighted to welcome Starc on board who is not just going to lead the bowling front but also help other bowlers in the team to improve.

Gautam Gambhir Believes Somebody Had To Pay The Price For Mitchell Starc

After the successful buy of Mitchell Starc, Gautam Gambhir could not hide his happiness and claimed that the 33-year-old would play a pivotal role for KKR in IPL 2024. “He is an X-factor, there is no doubt about that. Someone who can bowl with the new ball, bowl in the death overs, and more importantly, someone who can lead the attack.”

“He is going to be of massive help to our two domestic bowlers because both of them are very talented and you need someone to help them out in the middle and Starc covers those bases. It is not only about his bowling but also about leading the attack and helping all the guys around him. So, somebody will have to pay for it.”

Mitchell Starc last featured in the IPL auction in 2018 when KKR expressed their interest and bought him for 9.40 Crores. However, the Australian did not play that season but KKR will be finally happy to have him back.

In his only 2 seasons in 2014 and 2015, the 33-year-old took 34 wickets in 27 matches for RCB.

KKR Full squad for IPL 2024: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain.