- Statistician Arun Gopalakrishnan cracks down the 2016 IPL auctions through numbers.
- Arun felt, the franchises have recognised the importance of bowlers and therefore they spent more money on bowlers and bowling all-rounders.
- Out of the 38 players who were signed up for a fee in excess of one crore rupees, 16 were specialist bowlers, and at least 4 others who fall under the category of bowling all-rounders.
6 February 2016 will go down in history as being a watershed day in the history of a certain category of cricketers - called ‘bowlers’ - for they struck it rich at the Vivo IPL Player Auction 2016. The game of cricket has evolved such that there is very little for the bowlers; be it the conditions, ground sizes, laws of the game or cricket equipment – everything is swayed in favour the batsmen.
However at the Vivo IPL Player Auction 2016, it appeared that franchises eventually recognised the importance of having a good bowling attack. There’s the adage “bowlers win matches” and the eight IPL teams it appears paid close consideration to that age old theory. Off the total 136 Crore Rupees splurged on players, a significant amount were spent on bowlers – either specialist bowlers or bowling all-rounders. Furthermore, off the 38 players who were signed up for a fee in excess of one crore rupees, 16 were specialist bowlers, and at least 4 others who fall under the category of bowling all-rounders.
Here’s a look at the skill-wise distribution of the crorepatis created on the day:
Even among the top ten most expensive cricketers at the Vivo IPL Player Auction 2016, three were specialist bowlers and at least two others would fall under the category of bowling all-rounders.
Among the bowlers who struck it rich at the auction were Mohit Sharma (who was roped in by Kings XI Punjab for a fee of INR 6.50 Crore), Ashish Nehra (signed by Sunrisers Hyderabad for a fee of INR 5.50 Crore) and Ishant Sharma (roped in by Rising Pune Supergiants for INR 3.80 Crore).
Among the batsmen who lit up the auction proceedings were the Karnataka batsman Karun Nair and England-discard Kevin Pietersen. The Australian T20 captain Aaron Finch initially had no takers, but was eventually lapped up by Gujarat Lions at his base price of INR 1.0 Crore.
Several of the franchises spent a significant portion of money on multi-skill players – players who could contribute with bat and ball. As it turned out, Shane Watson, who recently became the first-ever cricketer to score a hundred, take a wicket and a catch in the same match as captain of a T20 international team – would be the biggest buy of the day; he was signed up by Royal Challengers Bangalore for a fee of INR 9.50 crore.
It was interesting to see the Delhi Daredevils splurge money on two wicketkeepers; they invested INR 4.2 crore on the young Sanju Samson and then invested in another young wicketkeeper – Delhi cricketer Rishabh Pant who just hours earlier had scored a magnificent century in India Under-19s World Cup Quarter-Final against Namibia – for a fee of INR 1.90 Crore.
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