IPL 2018: I see quite a few marquee players going unsold in the auction says Deep Dasgupta

The 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is all set to get underway this April. But before the IPL begins, the franchises are busy finalizing their teams. Since IPL has completed a decade of its existence, all the contracts will be signed all over again this season. But to keep the fan-connect intact, the IPL Governing Council allowed the franchises to retain five players from the previous squad.

The retention event happened recently and everyone is eagerly waiting for the IPL 2018 auction. With the auctions, less than a week away, the excitement is sky-rocketing. Fans and experts are giving their opinions about the strategies and players that might make big this time around. All the franchises are carefully observing the trends and players to watch out for.

Marquee players to be unsold?

The IPL GC released the list of players going into the auction under marquee category. A total of 16 players have been slotted in this category which is further divided into two lists for the auction. And this is the bunch of players that are expected to bag the biggest bids given their stature and international experience.

But cricket analyst and commentator Deep Das Gupta has other ideas. Speaking to the ESPNCricinfo, he opined that the auction will be interesting as franchises have to build their squads from the scratch. He also made a keen observation that the capped and uncapped players are bundled together in the auction this time. This wasn’t the case earlier as uncapped players were sold in a different category.

He said, “Bunching up uncapped players will have an effect on the marquee players. If you look at the marquee players, all of them are great players. But most of them are there because of what they’ve achieved in international cricket and in the past. This is going to be interesting. Is that value to the franchises?”

Dasgupta added that quite a few marquee players might go unsold in the first round. He said, “I see a quite few of marquee players going unsold at least in the first round of the auction. Yes, few of them will be called back and brought back. But I also see the franchises doing a lot of homework and saving some money for the players to come later on. As I mentioned they not just have to pick up the marquee players but also create a squad with good domestic players.”

He concluded that it would be interesting to see if there is a difference in approach at the auction this year.

To get live updates on VIVO IPL auction 2018, keep following “https://www.crictracker.com/ipl-2018-player-auction-live-feeds/“