The auction for next year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) took place on December 19 in Kolkata. As expected, the auction threw some big surprises. Pat Cummins emerged as the costliest player of the auction with Kolkata Knight Riders signing him for a whopping amount of INR 15.50 crore. The likes of Glenn Maxwell, Chris Morris, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Sheldon Cottrell also went for big money.
At the same times, the likes of Martin Guptill, Yusuf Pathan, Tim Southee, Mushfiqur Rahim and several other big names failed to find any teams. With the auction now done and dusted and all the squads finalised, all the eyes are now on the tournament. The BCCI is yet to announce the dates for the competition and will do it sooner rather than later.
Big stars to miss start?
A number of big names could miss the start of IPL 2020 if the BCCI decides to go ahead and start the tournament on March 28. According to media reports, the Indian cricket board is set to start the tournament on March 28. But in that case, players from Australia, New Zealand, England and Sri Lanka will miss the start of the competition.
The three T20Is between Australia and New Zealand are scheduled to be played on March 24, 27 and 29 while the Test series between England and Sri Lanka ends on March 31. Hence, the players from these four countries will surely miss the start. Even if the BCCI decides to start the tournament on April 1 which is a weekend, the players will miss at least a couple of games.
Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab will be largely affected by an early start to IPL as both the franchises spent big on buying Cummins and Maxwell, respectively. Apart from them, Sunrisers Hyderabad will also miss the services of their two senior payers – captain Kane Williamson and David Warner. Rajasthan Royals will be without their captain Steve Smith, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer for a couple of matches.
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