IPL 2018 Auction: Preity Zinta reveals the reason of buying Mujeeb Zadran

The mega-auction for the upcoming edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) took place in Bengaluru over the last couple of days. While some of the players attracted a lot of bids, few well-known cricketers went unsold much to the surprise of the cricket pundits and fans. Though the second day of the event was ruled by some of the unknown players who triggered an intense bidding war between the franchises. Mujeeb Zadran from Afghanistan was one of them who was bought by Kings XI Punjab for a whopping amount of INR 4 Crores.

The off-spinner is also 16 years old and also became the youngest player to go under the hammer in the cash-rich T20 league ever. He was the fourth Afghanistan player to be picked by any of the franchises after Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi and Zahir Khan. Mujeeb has already featured for the national side and has played 3 One-Day Internationals in which he has picked 7 wickets at an average of 16.57.

Preity reveals

Many teams wanted the Afghanistan cricketer in their side and they went all-out for him in the auction. But it was KXIP who were successful to pick for the gigantic amount. When asked the reason of going for him aggressively, the co-owner Preity Zinta revealed that he has a mystery element in his bowling. “It was a joint effort of the coaching and scouting staff. His (Mujeeb) name was always there and he has been an interesting talent and a bit of a mystery, so we went for him,” she told reporters after the event.

The ‘mystery element’ which the Bollywood actress was referring to is the youngster’s ability to bowl traditional offspin and mix it up with leg spin and ripping googlies. He is somewhat unknown to many in the cricketing fraternity but is surely a ‘complete package’ as Afghanistan coach Andy Moles had earlier termed him. It would be interesting to see what he offers in the eleventh season of the IPL.

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