'He went for more than what we expected'- Ricky Ponting on Shreyas Iyer's price in IPL mega auction

The IPL is the next upcoming tournament which will feature ten teams and some of the biggest names in T20 cricket. This will be the 18th edition of the tournament and there have been some big changes in all the squads in the mega auction and some new combinations can be discussed. 

There were some big buys in the auction and one of the most expensive players was Shreyas Iyer who was bought for a whopping price of INR 26.75 cr by the Punjab Kings (PBKS) and was also named the new skipper of the franchise. There were discussions over Punjab putting a lot of money on Iyer and this also led to head coach Ricky Ponting open up on putting a lot of money on the 2023 ODI World Cup finalist and also mentioned the need to have a strong Indian core. 

“At the end of the day, it's the Indian Premier League. It's not so much about the overseas guys. The overseas guys create a lot of hype, they go for a lot of money or whatever. But as far as I am concerned, I need to bring right Indian players back into the team. So we start with Shreyas Iyer, who I've worked with at Delhi," Ricky Ponting said on 'The Howie Games' Podcast. 

“He [Iyer] went for more than what we expected. There was a team that I was bidding against that I was pretty keen to make sure that he didn't go there, Arshdeep went first, which was one of our players from last year. We had a chance to retain on 18 cr, he went for 18 cr so we locked him in. Next Shreyas was second. Then Yuzi Chahal, the leg-spinner. You talk about people and characters, he was a non-negotiable for me as well. We budgeted a certain amount for him and he went a lot above," Ponting added. 

Speaking of Shreyas Iyer's tenure as a captain he led Delhi Capitals to their first IPL final in 2020 and also won the title as the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain last season. This was the third time the franchise won the title after beating Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the finals.