Shocked about how he went only for Rs 2.2 crore: DC co-owner on Steve Smith

Delhi Capitals bought former Australia captain Steve Smith at a price of Rs 2.2 Cr in the IPL 2021 mini auctions on Thursday. The DC co-owner Parth Jindal has said that he is “shocked” to get Smith in “only Rs 2.2 Cr”. 

"It was just incredible to get Steve Smith. We are shocked about how he went only for Rs 2.2 crore, but to get a player of the calibre of Steve Smith, it's going to add a lot to our squad, a lot to our balance. His leadership, his batting, his experience, everything. Everyone associated with Delhi is just thrilled. We discussed Smith's name before the auction and we thought that he would go for much higher, so we had thought that if an opportunity arises, we will go for him, but we never anticipated actually getting him," Jindal said.

Jindal also talked about the squad and praised the domestic players like Meriwala. "I think it's a very exciting squad yet again. Meriwala has been doing really well in the domestic tournaments and he's an Indian left-arm quick which we didn't have in our squad last year. He gives us an added variation and Tom Curran has the cutters, the slower ones, the quick ones and he's very good with the bat as well, so he gives that added balance to the squad,” Jindal said.

Apart from Smith, DC bought Umesh Yadav, Tom Curran, Sam Billings, Lukman Meriwala, Ripal Patel, Vishnu Vinod and Manimaran Siddharth.

Delhi Capitals Retained players: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Lalit Yadav, Avesh Khan, Praveen Dubey, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Chris Woakes.