Top bargains from IPL 2021 mini auctions

The IPL 2021 mini auctions were concluded on Thursday with some of the players grabbing whooping amounts of money while few of the big names turned out to be surprise picks after they went for a lesser sum as expected. Here is a look at some of the players who turned out to be good bargains for the franchises. 

Steve Smith

Former Australia captain Steve Smith was released by the Rajasthan Royals ahead of the mini auctions. The right-handed batsman became the first purchase of the day when he went to Delhi Capitals for Rs 2.2 Cr. Smith’s bid amount even surprised the DC co-owner. 

"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.

Smith has been a part of Pune Warriors India, Rising Pune Supergiant and RR in the earlier editions. He has so far played a total of 95 IPL matches scoring 2333 runs at an average of over 35. 

DC Full Squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant (wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Chris Woakes, R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Lalit Yadav, Pravin Dubey, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Ishant Sharma, Avesh Khan, Steve Smith, Umesh Yadav, Ripal Patel, Vishnu Vinod, Lukman Meriwala, M Siddarth, Tom Curran, Sam Billings

Dawid Malan

England opener Dawid Malan is probably the finest T20 batsman at the moment. The left-handed batsman went to Punjab Kings at the base price of Rs 1.5 Cr. This was one of the finest bids made by the Punjab franchise. 

Presently ranked at number one in the shortest format of the game, Malan has played 19 T20Is spring 855 runs at a strike rate of just under 150 and an average of 53.4. 

Punjab Kings Full Squad: KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Mandeep Singh, Nicholas Pooran, Ishan Porel, Sarfaraz Khan, Murugan Ashwin, Deepak Hooda, Mohammed Shami, Chris Jordan, Ravi Bishnoi, Harpreet Brar, Prabhsimran Singh, Darshan Nalkande, Arshdeep Singh, Dawid Malan, Jhye Richardson, Shahrukh Khan, Riley Meredith, Moises Henriques, Jalaj Saxena, Utkarsh Singh, Fabian Allen, Saurabh Kumar

Mohammed Azharuddeen 

The Royal Challengers Bangalore made a few good calls and buying Mohammed Azharuddeen at his base price of Rs 20 lakhs was one of them. 

Azharuddeen made headlines recently after notching up a stunning ton in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Kerala against Mumbai. He ended the tournament with a total tally of 214 runs in 5 matches. 

RCB full Sqaud: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj, Kane Richardson, Washington Sundar, Pavan Deshpande, Joshua Philippe, Shahbaz Ahamad, Navdeep Saini, Adam Zampa, Kyle Jamieson, Glenn Maxwell, Rajat Patidar, Sachin Baby, Mohammed Azharuddeen, Dan Christian, KS Bharat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Daniel Sams, Harshal Patel

Ben Cutting

Next in the list is Ben Cutting who was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for a base price of Rs 75 lakhs. Cutting had a decent run at the BBL 10 while playing for Sydney Thunder and can prove to be a brilliant pick in the IPL 2021. 

He has been a part of MI, RR and SRH camps in the IPL earlier. He was first bought by RR in 2014 while he then moved to SRH for the 2016-17 season before getting picked up by MI in the 2018-19 season. 

KKR Full Squad: Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Tim Seifert, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Harbhajan Singh, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer, Pawan Negi, Vaibhav Arora and Karun Nair.

Umesh Yadav

It would be a homecoming for the fast bowler Umesh Yadav after he was bought by Delhi Capitals for a base price of Rs 1 Cr. Initially, no one really showed much interest in the right-arm quick but Delhi franchise eventually got him. 

Yadav is probably one of the fastest bowlers in the country but his problem of leaking runs at high economy rate can prove costly. 

In 121 IPL matches that Umesh has played, he has picked up 119 wickets at an economy of over 8 and an average of 30.07. Umesh was earlier released by RCB ahead of the auctions. He has been a part of KKR, Delhi Daredevils and RCB in the previous editions.