Stokes leads all-rounders’ list in Friday’s Indian Premier League mini auction

The Tata IPL auction will be held on December 23 in Kochi. (Image: iplt20.com)

As the hammer is set to go down at the Indian Premier League (IPL) mini auction in Kochi on Friday, almost all the franchises will be setting their sights on all-rounders who can do multitasking and get the job done on the field.

Eighty seven vacancies are to be filled by the 10 IPL franchises, a little over one-third of them open for overseas players, from among the 405 players who have registered for the one-day auction.

While the core strength of each of the teams had been finalised at the mega auction in February this year, some of the franchises have traded players while some others have released players including, those from overseas, in order to resurrect their teams in next year’s IPL.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), the 2016 winners, have the maximum amount remaining in their purse to splurge at the auction among the 10 teams. With ₹42.25 crore remaining and four overseas slots to be filled, SRH, which released even their captain Kane Williamson of New Zealand, are in a better position to go all out and acquire top all-rounder of England, Ben Stokes. The 31-year-old Englishman begins at a base price of ₹2 crore.

For the record, Kolkata Knight Riders have the least money available for the auction, with ₹7.05 crore remaining from which to pick a maximum of three foreign players and with 11 available slots.

Stokes at the forefront 

Stokes has proved time and again that he can win matches single-handedly like he did when he hit an unbeaten fifty against Pakistan in the final to guide England to their second International Cricket Council (ICC) men’s T20 World Cup title in Australia last month.

And Stokes, the England captain, is in the forefront of the team’s new brand of Test cricket, along with head coach Brendon McCullum of New Zealand, who in the ever first match of the IPL set the league afire with a hurricane 158 not out for KKR against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru fourteen-and-a-half years ago.

Stokes will undoubtedly lead the list of overseas all-rounders who will be much sought-after in the auction. And included in that list is his England team-mate and left-arm medium-pacer Sam Curran, who picked up three wickets for 12 to be named the man of the match in the recent ICC T20 World Cup final.

It is not that Stokes will be new to the IPL. He was part of the erstwhile Rising Pune Supergiants in 2017 before being bought for ₹12.50 crore by Rajasthan Royals the following year to be the most expensive player in the 2018 auction. It won’t be surprising if he betters that figure on Friday. For, such is the demand for all-rounders and more so if the player answers to the name of Ben Stokes.

Others in the list 

Among the other all-rounders who will be in demand will be Australia’s Cameron Green, who like Stokes and Curran, begins with a base price of ₹ 2 crore. Green has grown in stature in his short international career and besides being a useful medium-pacer and a big-hitting batsman, has a safe pair of hands. Green is one who will certainly make his presence count in this most popular league like some of his fellow countrymen have in the past 15 editions.

The likes of Shakib al Hasan of Bangladesh, who is a veteran in this format but is ageing, can still be in demand. That the 35-year-old is currently the No. 1 ranked all-rounder may still work in his favour. As also Zimbabwe’s performing all-rounder Sikandar Raza, who though 36, is still their best bet in all formats.

But the franchises may want to invest in younger all-rounders who can be swift on the field and in between wickets and who can be retained in the long run, say like a Kieron Pollard or a Dwayne Bravo who served their respective franchises, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, with distinction.

The auction will also aim to find suitable replacements for these long-serving legends of the IPL, who either won matches and titles with their bat alone, or ball alone or, in Pollard’s case, by an act of brilliance in the outfield.

With Bravo and Pollard stepping down as players but continuing with their respective franchises as support staff, there may be continuity but both CSK and MI would not have it easy in finding  replacements who should not only be multi-skilled match-winners but also long-term prospects.

They can afford to pick  some top players from the large pool available, what with MI having a purse of ₹20.55 crore and three overseas players to pick while CSK have ₹20.45 crore and only two foreigners to choose at the most.

Players of the calibre of David Wiese, currently of Namibia but formerly of South Africa, the Overton brothers from England, James and Craig, New Zealand’s Jimmy Neesham, Daryll Mitchell and Michael Bracewell and Sri Lanka’s limited-overs captain Dasun Shanaka will be watching the IPL auction with interest which teams would bid for them and how much their values go up from their base price that varies from ₹50 lakh to ₹2Cr.

Indian aspirants 

It is not just the overseas all-rounders that will evoke interest among the IPL franchises. The Indians, especially those youngsters who show promise and whom the talent scouts of each franchise would have observed closely in the domestic Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, would also be looked at.

These Indians may not have set the Mushtaq Ali Trophy afire but in the eyes of the talent scouts, have enough gumption to come good in demanding circumstances. Someone like a Abhinav Manohar, who came good for Gujarat Titans in his role as a finisher in a few matches in IPL 2022 or Jitesh Sharma of Punjab Kings, or for that matter, Mukesh Choudhary of CSK with his left-arm medium-pace upfront or in the death, all unknown names before IPL 2022 but who became household names as the tournament wore on.

Injuries to stalwarts 

The auction will also hold significance as young Indian all-rounders will be closely watched keeping in mind the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. As the recent performances showed, the Indian team struggled for all-rounders and the unavailability of Ravindra Jadeja for a major part of the Asia Cup and the whole of the 2022 T20 World Cup due to injury showed that it struggled to find an apt replacement.

As a result, India struggled to finish out at crucial phases of the matches and failed to qualify for the finals of both the major competitions. It will be prudent for the Indian team management to get quality and talented youngsters who can chip in with useful contributions with both the bat and the ball, something like the injury-prone Washington Sundar does whenever he is fit and available for India.

As has been seen in recent times, Indian bowling has suffered due to the constant injuries of their regular stalwarts. And, India have adopted the chop and change policy, not out of desire but out of compulsion due to injuries. So much so that their bowling has often left a lot to be desired.

And, gone are the days when the top-order batsmen of the 1990s or 2000s chipped in with the ball in ODIs and sent down a few overs, making up for the quota of the fifth regular bowler in case any of the key bowlers had an off day. The likes of Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguly and even Sachin Tendulkar bowled to give extra options that sometimes they even outclassed the regular bowlers with outstanding performances.

But, the current team does not have that cushion nowadays in T20s. How would you explain when someone like Navdeep Saini gets injured without playing a match for the country and being unavailable for the second Test in Bangladesh starting on Thursday?

The specialists 

Needless to say, Friday’s auction will also look at the specifics like specialists bowling in the Power Play or death overs, good finishers like Dinesh Karthik or MS Dhoni in his heydays. Indian players who can be invested for the long run and not just looked at the next one or two years, someone like a Virat Kohli, who has stuck with one franchise (RCB) from its inaugural year or a Dhoni with CSK, will also be looked at.

And, if the franchise owners have it their way, they could also look at players who could serve them in the South Africa T20 league in which the six teams are owned by the Indian franchises.

In more ways than one, Friday’s auction assumes great importance with the central idea being to pick up as many all-rounders that are available.

That does not mean specialist batsmen or specialist bowlers become redundant. But, as the T20 World Cup champions England have shown the world, all-rounders hold the key in this format. Imagine England’s No. 11 is Adil Rashid, the ace leg-spinner who has registered himself for the auction with a base price of ₹2 crore, has 10 first-class centuries.

The order of the day is batsmen who can bowl and bowlers who can bat. And of course, the days of specialist wicketkeepers are long gone.