IPL 2023: 5 teams that might target Daryl Mitchell at auction

Daryl Mitchell has emerged to be the key player for New Zealand in the last few years. His experience and calmness came to fore in the T20 World Cup 2021 semi-finals, when he slammed 72* off 47 against England and his innings paved the way for the Kiwi team to reach the finals of the showpiece event. Earlier this year, Mitchell returned as the best batter in the Test series against England with 538 runs in six innings, with three centuries to his name. In the 2022 edition of the IPL, the 31-year-old could score only 27 runs in two innings for Rajasthan Royals. As a result, he has been released ahead of the IPL auction. However, there will be a few teams who might want to avail services of Mitchell in different capacities. 1. Punjab Kings Punjab Kings released their skipper Mayank Agarwal ahead of the mini-auction, which has freed the space in the top as well as the middle-order. The new skipper Shikhar Dhawan opened along with Jonny Bairstow in PBKS’s last league match of IPL 2022. Mitchell and Bairstow have a track record to contribute at every position in international cricket. The franchise can try to play both individuals at the opening slot if one of them fails and continue the left-right combination as well. With the presence of strikers like Liam Livingstone, Shahrukh Khan and Jitesh Sharma in the middle-order, PBKS needs a player like Mitchell, who can play an anchor role to ensure the team posts quality totals. In the last edition, PBKS played with an attacking mindset, which was obviously their natural game. But, they were dismissed early in a few of the matches by throwing away their wickets in clusters. Therefore, Mitchell’s inclusion can help them stabilize their innings. 2. Gujarat Titans Gujarat Titans side secured a title victory in their debut season in the 2022 edition. Their batting performances were top-notch, while the bowlers complemented each other well. However, they released two foreigners in form of Lockie Ferguson and Rahmanullah Gurbaz ahead of the new season. The team’s openers Wriddhiman Saha and Shubman Gill did well to provide a good start in almost every match. However, other than Pandya and David Miller, none of the batters possesses the ability to play big innings in the middle order, which might make the team look towards Mitchell in the auction. Moreover, GT are expected prefer Saha over Matthew Wade due to the latter’s average performances in the 2022 edition. In place of Wade, Mitchell can also provide experience to the GT line-up. 3. Kolkata Knight Riders Kolkata Knight Riders let go of their openers Aaron Finch and Ajinkya Rahane, who failed to be consistent. Further, the likes of Alex Hales and Sam Billings have opted to skip the tournament to focus on their international career. KKR traded Gurbaz from GT in their bid to enhance their overseas pool of batters. Likewise, Mitchell can prove to be a boon to the KKR line-up in terms of his experience and performances on the big stage. At present, the core batters of the team are only Nitish Rana and Shreyas Iyer. With Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and one amongst Tim Southee and Lockie Ferguson confirmed to be the starters, it will leave a spot for a batter in the XI. It will be interesting to see if KKR management opts for an Indian or overseas batter. 4. Sunrisers Hyderabad Sunrisers Hyderabad have always been a bowling-heavy side in the last few editions. However, their batters played a prominent role in their victories in the last season as well. The duo of Nicholas Pooran and Aiden Markram helped the team to post big scores and seal the chases as well. However, the franchise opted to release Pooran ahead of the new season. Moreover, SRH released their skipper Kane Williamson as well, due to his lean patch with the bat and captaincy failure. Apart from these two, Priyam Garg, Romario Shepherd, Sean Abbott, Shashank Singh were also released from the setup. Batters like Glenn Phillips and Aiden Markram are likely to be in the SRH starting XI. However, the team has a terrific Indian bowling line-up, which might push them to go for Mitchell in the auction. However, the Kiwi batter might have to play an aggressive brand of cricket in the SRH line-up and fulfil Pooran’s absence. 5. Delhi Capitals The Delhi Capitals decided to release as many as four batters, Ashwin Hebbar, K.S. Bharat, Mandeep Singh, Tim Seifert ahead of the new season were the batters. Although Hebbar did not get an opportunity, other players failed to make it big in a handful of appearances in the 2022 edition. As a result, the team would look to enhance their bench strength and backups in the batting department. David Warner and Prithvi Shaw were successful in providing potent starts to DC while Rovman Powell and Rishabh Pant were impressive in the middle-order. With the ability to score runs across all-formats, Mitchell could prove to be beneficial for DC to raise the paddle for him in the mini-auction. So far, he has amassed over 3,000 runs in 149 T20s, with 13 fifties.

Topics

Featured Section

Current Series

IPL 2025 Auction

IPL Teams

Cricket Fantasy Tips

Cricket Stats

ICC Rankings

Interviews

Twitter Reactions

Cricket Appeal

Social Tracker

More Links

# Follow Us

Other Sports

IPL 2023: 5 teams that might target Daryl Mitchell at auction

Dary Mitchell featured for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2022.

3. Kolkata Knight Riders

Latest Articles

WPL Auction 2025: RCB strengthen squad with versatile picks

Who is Simran Shaikh? GG's INR 1.9-crore buy at WPL Auction

Guha's comments on Bumrah reminds fans of 'Monkeygate' row