I’m very surprised that we got somebody like Kane Williamson at base price: Ashish Nehra

After a disappointing season last time around, the Sunrisers Hyderabad franchise decided to release their skipper Kane Williamson ahead of the next season. The seasoned veteran was thus back at the auction table and to everyone’s surprise, only one franchise showed interest to sign the Kiwi skipper.

Gujarat Titans wanted an experienced player in the middle and didn’t waste much time to sign Williamson for INR 2 crore. Head coach Ashish Nehra, who was present in the room, later revealed that he too was quite shocked to see no other team bidding for the 32-year-old. He later mentioned that the franchise was ready to spend more money in case it was required.

“Somebody like Williamson will bring in so much experience. He is a proven player, didn’t have a couple of good IPL seasons but IPL is so fast-paced that it takes very little time for thinking and perception to change. For us, if he would have gone for much more, we would have still gone for Kane Williamson. We believe in that player and wanted to have that mix of experience and youth. Kane brings a lot to the table for any team. We are privileged that we could have him, and on top of that at base price,” said Nehra while talking to Jio Cinema.

“I’m very surprised that we got somebody like Kane Williamson at base price,” the former India international added.

We knew earlier also that we can’t go for somebody like Stokes or Green or Curran: Nehra

With INR 19.25 crore in the kitty, the Gujarat franchise preferred not to invest in any of the three big all-rounders that were available in the auction. Instead, the Hardik Pandya-led side made some smart buys to fill in the gaps that the franchise had in the previous season.

Nehra, the head coach of the side was very happy with their buys and also mentioned the reason they didn’t go after Ben Stokes, Sam Curran or Cameron Green.

“First you need to see how much funds you have and what you need. Auction is not like you will get whatever six-eight players you need. Very rarely it happens but we were lucky to get what we wanted and still have some money left. We knew earlier also that we can’t go for somebody like Stokes or Green or Curran because they are going to go big. We are happy to fill the slots we wanted to fill,” said the 43-year-old.