What Makes IPL 2016 Auction a Flop Show

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IPL offers a right platform to nurture domestic cricketers from scratch, while giving them maximum exposure in 20-20 over game. This year’s IPL auction turned out to be a flop show. Here it is – why?

Cricket – The Gentleman’s Game

Cricket is strange & unpredictable and so are the events surrounding it. Like previous year’s, 2016 IPL bidding process turned out to be a flop show altogether.

The format of the IPL allows 7 domestic players and 4 international cricketers in each team. But barring 2 or 3 domestic cricketers, most of the teams keep only well known names to stay alive in this highly competitive contest.

The Flop Show

This year, IPL auction was not the one that everyone felt happy about. There are several reasons for it.

Amla won’t feature in IPL 2016

Several star cricketers remained unsold this year for reasons unknown. Hashim Amla, one of the most consistent and talented batsmen in present era, has been simply overlooked by the franchisees at IPL players bidding 2016. He is certainly an asset for any team in any format, but it’s hard to see that such a supremely talented batsman won’t feature in Vivo IPL 2016.

Cariappa is Missing

In IPL 2015, he was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders for a whopping 4-crore but as the tournament concluded, Cariappa is forgotten now. He could play only 5 IPL matches for the KKR last season picking up 8 wickets. Also, he didn’t get a berth at India’s national team for World T20 championship 2016.

Michal Hussey is Left Out

IPL Auction 2016 didn’t find the legendary Aussie batsman Michal Hussey to get into any team. The left-handed-batsman effected many victories for Chennai Super Kings (CSK. But this time, his growing age might be a factor, due to which the franchisees didn’t show any interest in him. But for a legend like him, age is just a number. He won the Big Bash League a fortnight back and can still hit big shots at ease. His immense experience about the game could also have been handy for any IPL franchisee. Yet, he has been completely ignored by each team.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, this year’s IPL bidding seemed very much predictable. As per the expectations, star cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Shane Watson remained the highest bid players.

Watson has certainly got the reward for his brilliant performance against India in the 3 T20 match series down under.

Contrarily, Yuvraj Singh is an evergreen star. Franchisees never worry spending a few million bucks on him, considering his rich legacy of match winning performances against every team in limited over formats over the last two decades.

But the question arise here that, will Yuvraj live up to the expectations this year, at IPL 2016? For records, the veteran cricketer didn’t play that much well in the IPL 2015 managing just 248 runs in 14 innings!