India national cricket team’s legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar doubts Australia national cricket team’s main left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc will fetch a ‘record price’ in Premier League mega auction india (IPL) 2025.
Sunil Gavaskar said Mitchell Starc will not attract big bids in the auction as Indian Premier League franchises will not be too desperate to acquire his services.
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Mitchell Starc became the most expensive player in history at the IPL 2024 auction
Australia National Cricket Team senior pacer Mitchell Starc broke all records in the Indian Premier League 2024 mini-auction and became the most expensive player in the history of the league.
Several franchises were involved in intense bidding wars to acquire the pacer’s services, but in the end, it was the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise that managed to woo him.
The franchise spent INR 24.75 crore to buy him and Mitchell Starc became the most expensive player in IPL history.
Starc, however, was unable to repay the franchise’s faith as they failed miserably in the group stage. The pacer constantly leaked runs and failed to get wickets with players like Harshit Rana and Andre Russell looking more threatening than him.
However, when the competition moved to the playoffs, Mitchell Starc brought out his beast mode and single-handedly won matches for the team, playing a key role in their third title.
In total, in 14 matches, Starc picked up 17 wickets for the Kolkata Knight Riders at an average of 26.11, economy of 10.61 and strike rate of 14.7.
So I’m not really sure I’ll go for that kind of record price – Sunil Gavaskar
Speaking on Star Sports’ show ‘Game Plan’, Gavaskar said that Starc will not fetch a huge amount in the upcoming auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“I think Mitchell Starc played well in the last two games. In the semi-finals and finals sense, but before that he was quite expensive, conceding a lot of runs in the beginning and also conceding a lot of runs in the last two overs. So I’m not very sure it will go for the record price we were looking for in the previous auction.”
Notably, Starc was released by KKR when they decided to retain Rinku Singh (₹13 crore), Varun Chakaravarthy (₹12 crore), Sunil Narine (₹12 crore), Andre Russell (₹12 crore), Harshit Rana (₹4 crore ) and Ramandeep Singh (4 crore).
KKR could go for him, but not for Rs 24 crore: Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar further said that Kolkata Knight Riders might bid for him in the auction to rebuild their IPL 2024-winning team, but they won’t spend anywhere near INR 24 crore. He said:
“KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders) would like me to come back into the team because you want a winning combination, you want to get your winning combination back as much as possible. So, KKR could go for him, but not for Rs 24 crore.”