IPL 2018 Auction: 5 worst picked players by the franchises to fulfill their compositions

The Indian Premier League – IPL 2018 auction was expected to be a largely thrilling and spectacular extravaganza and the whole two-day setup surely lived up to all the hyped forecasts. Many of the Indians as well as the overseas player’s fate was decided in the intense bidding wars which got all the eight franchises of the league charging in a fashionable manner. While, there were also some players who failed to induce any bids in the auction as they went unsold. Eventually every franchise at the end of the auction to a great extent filled each departments of its roaster with some of the specialized players which included both Indian and foreign cricketers.

The franchises also happened to buy out some of the unfavorable candidates for some huge bidding amounts. These worst picks can ought to work in a lousy manner for their respective franchises in the upcoming season of the IPL. In the quest to select the best possible options in their respective compositions, some of the players were selected just for the sake of completing the squad or when no other key player was available in the budding list of cricketers.

Here are the five worst picks from the 2018 IPL auction:

1. Piyush Chawla

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) invited a lot of surprising and astounding moments at the auction table. They retained leg-spinner Piyush Chawla for a dazzling amount of Rs 4.20 crores through the Right to Match(RTM) card option. The Knight Rider player was indulged in a huge bidding war with each of Chennai, Mumbai and Rajasthan going with high intensity to include him into their combination. However, Chawla was eventually bough by CSK first for Rs 4.2 crores after which KKR used their second RTM card to retain him.

He is considered to be a worst option for KKR as the leggie does not have impressive numbers in the recent domestic season in India. Also, he bowls much flatter these days and ends up bowling a lot of loose deliveries in a game, which allows the batsmen to take undue advantage in this process. In the past, the Gujarat cricketer also provided his teams with some useful contributions with the willow, but currently his batting abilities have dropped to a considering factor.

2. Moeen Ali

All-rounders are largely considered to be great aspects in the shortest format of the game. But the idea of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) buying England all-rounder Moeen Ali for Rs 1.7 crores looks to be an unlikely option. Ali has featured in 22 T20Is for England in which he has scored 202 runs which includes a single half-century and picked up 14 wickets with his off-spin bowling ability.

This will also be the debut season for the English cricketer, but will surely have heard of the IPL flavours from England teammates who have featured in the tournament before. With many star overseas cricketers like AB de Villiers, Brendon McCullum and Chris Woakes in their ranks, Moeen is expected to warm the bench in the most likely manner as only four of the foreign players can fit into the playing eleven. The off-spinner will only be getting the opportunity to feature in the league, if there is an injury to some major player or other possible situations.

3. Pawan Negi

Pawan Negi made some great headlines when he was picked by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs 8.50 crores in 2016, which made him the most costliest bowler back then. But the left-arm spinner followed it with an absolute dismal run in that season of the IPL, which was not expected from a young talent at all. The all-rounder has once again come into the recognition as he was retained by previous edition’s franchise RCB at the 2018 auction for Rs 1 crore through the RTM card.

Negi did not have a great season either with the RCB last year as he picked up only 16 wickets and also averaged 17.69 with the bat. He was not fairly impressive for Delhi in the 2018 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, which is the reason Negi happens to be one of the worst picks by the RCB at the auction.

4. Dinesh Karthik

KKR were involved in another striking event at the auction table, when they procured wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik for a sizable amount of Rs 7.40 crores. However, they came into the reckoning when they next retained another wicket-keeper Robin Uthappa at a considerable amount of 6.40 crores through the RTM option. Karthik’s inclusion invited a lot of worthy queries towards the KKR franchise in context of their thinking behind these strange selections.

Even though Karthik is currently featuring in the national team for various T20 series, he has surely not yet depicted his worth for the Indian team. The right hander is still not considered as a pretty settled candidate in the middle order, especially in the shortest format of the game. Also at such a high price of Rs 6.4 crores, KKR have many other great options of including some of the key middle order batsmen in their combination, even with a slightly less budget than this.

5. Karun Nair

Karnataka’s young opener Karun Nair got picked by the Kings XI Punjab for Rs 5.6 crores. The extensive amount certainly fails to do justice with the entire thought process of the franchise at the auction. With some of the star openers in KL Rahul, Aaron Finch and Mayank Aggarwal already in their kitty, Nair is highly unlikely to get the opener’s spot in the team in the upcoming season.

His numbers are absolutely impressive in the domestic T20 tournaments, but those figures came while opening the batting for his state team. Also his price tag does not goes in hand with his limited abilities in previous season of the IPL. He did not had a great season with the Delhi Daredevils last year for which they ignored to retain him back in their team.