IPL 2023: 5 players who may fetch fewer bucks than 2022

2. Nicholas Pooran 

Nicholas Pooran is a ferocious striker of the cricket ball and has the ability to tear bowling line-ups apart with his swashbuckling stroke play. The 27-year-old has featured in 256 T20 matches and amassed 4942 runs at a strike rate of 141.15. Sunrisers Hyderabad picked Pooran at the IPL 2022 auction to bolster their batting line-up.

Pooran played some blistering knocks for the Hyderabad franchise and amassed 306 runs in 14 games at a strike rate of 144.34. However, SRH, who invested a staggering sum of INR 10.75 crore to acquire the wicketkeeper-batter’s services, were not inclined towards paying a hefty amount to retain him for the 16th IPL edition and decided to let go of the southpaw ahead of the upcoming auction.

The flamboyant batter has been far from his best in the T20 arena of late. In Caribbean Premier League 2022, Pooran managed to score just 108 runs in 10 games at a strike rate of 117.39. His horror show with the bat continued in the recently concluded T20 World Cup 2022, where he scored only 25 runs in three games at a strike rate of 86.20. Thus, given the former West Indies skipper has not been able to deliver in T20 tournaments of late, franchises might not go hammer and tongs to sign him at the forthcoming auction.

However, Pooran showed his batting might in Abu Dhabi T10 League, scoring 345 runs in 10 games at a strike rate of 234.69. But given it was not a high-pressure environment and there was not much at stake, one cannot conclude that he has returned to form. Therefore, the wicketkeeper-batter is likely to fetch a price lower than last year.