IPL 2021 Auction: Three teams who fared the best at the auction table

The IPL auction is an interesting arrangement. The buying and trading of players do get initiated by a team’s ingenious panel, which does comprise a unique combination. This combination involves some of the country’s best razor-sharp executives and individuals along with international cricket’s most admirable minds. Such a distinctive pairing then decides the faring of an IPL team at an auction table. All in all, as experts say an IPL franchise does decide its fate into the upcoming edition by the way they do their business during the auction’s day. Hence in the recently concluded 2021 auction, here are our top three teams who have fared the best.

3. Kolkata Knight Riders

The men from the East did enter the auction day with a purse of INR 10.75 Crores. One of their vacant openings did demand a high-class all-rounder and with that objective, the management did sign the Bangladeshi legend Shakib Al Hasan for 3.2 crores and then the Aussie pace-bowling all-rounder Ben Cutting for 75 lakh.

Also read: IPL 2021 Teams, Squads and Complete List of Players

To get some additional bolstering, they immaculately acquired some steal deals by picking the likes of Karun Nair, Sheldon Jackson and Harbhajan Singh. The above stack of Indian players does provide them prudent backups for their front line players hence creating that accomplishable team balance. Overall, KKR bought a total of eight players and were left with a purse of INR 3.20 Crores at the end.

2. Punjab Kings

Just like every other year, the franchise had filtered a significant amount of players before the auctions and hence had their pockets deep filled with a maximum amount of 53 crores. The rebranded team first addressed its key concern – lack of quality overseas pacers and hence the management fervently bagged the services of Jhye Richardson (14 crores) and Riley Meredith (8 crores).

Da-??? us! ??#SaddaPunjab #PunjabKings #IPLAuction2021 pic.twitter.com/IBu3mmqOAB

— Punjab Kings (@PunjabKingsIPL) February 18, 2021

James Neesham’s void then got filled with Moises Henriques. To bolster their inventory of Indian batters, they also acquired SMAT’s budding sensation Shahrukh Khan for a transpiring amount of 5.25 crores. Their steal deal was of getting the world’s no.1 ranked T20 batsman Dawid Malan who can viably be a cover for the 41-year-old Chris Gayle. Overall, the management bought a total of 9 players and were left with a balance of 18.80 crores at the end.

1. Rajasthan Royals

Like their neighbour Punjab Kings, the RR management also had a hefty purse (37.85 crores) to flaunt. Hence that’s the reason why just to acquire Chris Morris, they produced their most expensive offer in the IPL’s history. In addition to that, the team did have a clear vision of working on their team balance and therefore another all-rounder was fetched in the form of Shivam Dube.

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— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals) February 18, 2021

Getting Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman as a backup of Jofra Archer did look like a steal deal alongside acquiring the domestic pacer Chetan Sakariya. Overall, the RR management did buy a total of eight players and were left with an amount of 13.65 crores at the end. All in all, apart from the three English jewels (Buttler, Stokes and Jofra Archer) who still form their main core, there are now other significant exponents where RR can neatly rely upon.