'They have paid dearly for it' - Tom Moody on PBKS' auction strategy as they sign Shreyas Iyer, Arshdeep Singh

Shreyas Iyer led Kolkata Knight Riders to the title win in IPL 2024. Fans were bamboozled when he was not retained by KKR ahead of IPL 2025 mega auctions. Subsequently, the player entered the auction with INR two crore as the base price. As fate would have it, Punjab Kings, who had 110.5 crore as the remaining purse amount, signed the Mumbaiker for a whopping 26.75 crore. 

PBKS was the franchise to dread as no other franchise was near to compete with their purse amount. It was pre-empted that the Punjab-based team could go all guns blazing at the auction, especially for a marquee player as they are short of some and a captain too. Former PBKS coach Tom Moody has shown disregard towards the team’s auction strategy. While criticizing Shreyas Iyer’s buy he also questioned the motive behind spending 18 crore for Arshdeep Singh.

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"It tells us that Punjab came into this auction, with pockets full of crores and now they have emptied them very, very quickly, with two players being auctioned off. Yes, you knew they were going to go hard early because they were in that position. I don't think in any world they were expecting to pay 18 crore for Arshdeep or nearly 27 crore for Shreyas Iyer. They have got their two players, but they have paid dearly for it," said Moody as quoted by HT.

PBKS had retained just two uncapped players in the form of Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh. They had spent just 9.5 crore combined to keep them within the squad. They were in dire need of a leader figure and with the substantial amount in hand, used RTM for Arshdeep and inked a contract with the title-winning captain, Iyer.