Some big names to skip next IPL jamboree

SOME big names in international cricket such as Ben Stokes, Chris Gayle, Jofra Archer, Joe Root, Mitchell Starc, Chris Woakes and Sam Curran have decided to skip the Indian Premier League 2022 and subsequently didn’t enrol for the mega-auction, set for February 12 and 13.

Root had previously said that he would have to sacrifice IPL for England and Test cricket, but the absence of Stokes, Archer, Starc, Woakes and Gayle was a bit surprising. However, there are still very big international names who have made themselves available for the auction.

Among the big foreign star names on the list with a reserve base price of about R4 million are: Pat Cummins (Australia), David Warner (Australia), Steve Smith (Australia), Quinton de Kock (South Africa), Faf du Plessis (South Africa), Mark Wood (England), Trent Boult (New Zealand), Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh) and Dwayne Bravo (West Indies), as per ESPNcricinfo.

Veteran West Indies cricketer Gayle, who has been a regular feature in the IPL since its inception, is missing from the list. The Curran brothers – Sam and Tom – are other big absentees on the list as they are likely to be out of action during IPL (April-May) due to injuries.

Among the Indians are A-listers like R Ashwin, Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishan Kishan, Dinesh Karthik, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu and Robin Uthappa who all are in the top reserve price bracket.

Pacers Prasidh Krishna and T Natarajan are in the R2m category while S Sreesanth will be available from about R1m onwards. Spinners Washington Sundar and Amit Mishra are in the R3m classification. Cheteshwar Pujara, the surprise pick in the last auction by Chennai Super Kings, is at R1m.

Overall, a total of 1 214 cricketers, including 270 capped players, 312 uncapped players and 41 from associate nations like Nepal, UAE, Oman, Scotland and the Netherlands, have registered for the auction, and the list was sent to the 10 IPL franchises on Friday night.