5 times when star players went unsold in IPL Auctions
They haven’t attracted any attention from the franchises despite doing two-three rounds in the auction.
3. Chris Gayle (2011)
Chris Gayle has a unique love story with IPL auctions. In 2008, he was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). He didn’t play in 2008 but played 16 games across 2009 and 2010 and was pretty good. The hard-hitting opener returned with 463 runs which came at a strike-rate of 141.59.
However, much to everybody’s surprise in 2011, he went unsold. There was not one franchise that showed interest in Gayle who had a base price of $400,000. But after Dirk Nannes’ injury, he got a call up from the RCB management and the rest is history. Gayle went on to smash a lot of batting records in T20 cricket and the IPL.
However, after a couple of poor seasons in 2016 and 2017, RCB released Gayle ahead of the 2018 season. In the mega auctions, Gayle came up three times and it was Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) who picked him at the last minute. He has been very good for them, having amassed 858 runs at an average of 40.86 and at a strike-rate of 150.26.
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