5 International stars who never played in the IPL

Indian Premier League is the most controversial, yet the most attractive baby of cricket. The BCCI announced the tournament in 2007 and it kicked off in 2008. It has been 12 years since the inaugural season and the extravaganza has seen it all, from ups and downs, from revenue and controversies. All these things have made the IPL, the pinnacle T20 league of world cricket.

The cash-rich league has a large amount of money included, which leads to the excitement in players and fans. The unique concept of auctioning the players grabs more headlines than any player draft. The tournament has attracted almost all the international stars as well as the mainstays of Team India. Tendulkars, Kohlis, Dravids, Dhonis, all of them have played in this exhibition.

However, there are still some big names who didn’t get attracted by a chunk of money. Some put in there names for the auction but the owners didn’t find them valuable enough. Though the tournament is still a major attraction in the world cricket, however, the addition of such cricket heroes would have added to the value a bit more.

Let us go through 5 such big international names who never played in the IPL:

1. Stuart Broad

Stuart Broad is the second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket for England. The fast bowler is known for Tests more than the T20 cricket, but the pacer has captained the English T20I side in past. He is also the highest wicket-taker for England in T20Is, yet he has never played in IPL.

Whenever we think of Broad and T20s together, Yuvraj Singh’s breathtaking six sixes in an overcome to our mind. But, the Englishman is more than that. He has a bowling average of 22 in T20I for England which is well above par and the speedster could have been a valuable asset in the IPL.

In 2011, Kings XI Punjab bought him in the IPL auction for USD 400,000, but he was not able to feature in any of the games as he opted out due to injury. They retained him in 2012 as well but he again missed out due to injury. Finally, the Punjab franchise let him go and he didn’t feature in any match of the league. With the noise of low standards of bowling in IPL growing louder, Broad could have been a centrepiece for the showpiece event.