IPL 2021: Ashish Nehra predicts the most expensive pick in the auction

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has finally decided to host the highly-anticipated mini-auction for the upcoming 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Chennai on February 18. With the auction round the corner, many cricket analysts and pundits are coming up with the names they believe will be the most expensive player of this IPL season.

A total of 164 Indian players, 125 overseas players, and 3 players from Associate nations will be up for grabs in the IPL 2021 Player Auction in Chennai. Over the years, we have seen franchise owners running behind overseas players and spending crores of rupees to include them in their squad. The same scenario is expected to take place this year too.

Former Indian pacers Ashish Nehra made a unique choice as he opined on the most expensive player of the 2021 IPL auction. Nehra believes that Bangladesh superstar, Shakib Al Hasan will be the hot-shot player most teams would go into a bidding war for. Hasan wasn’t a part of last year’s auction as he was banned from the sport for a year by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Shakib Al Hasan can give balance to any IPL team: Ashish Nehra

Nehra believes that Shakib will be a valuable inclusion to any of the eight IPL franchises as we can provide balance to the teams by contributing both with the bat and ball.

“Again, one more IPL auction and plenty of big names, but one name, which according to me is right on top – can be the most expensive player of this IPL auction – is Bangladesh all-rounder, Shakib Al Hasan (former captain). He can give balance to any IPL team in any T20,” Nehra said on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected – Auction Special.

Shakib Al Hasan’s IPL career had started in 2011 and since then he has been part of franchises like Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad. He has featured in 63 IPL games thus far scoring 746 runs at an average of 21.3 and strike rate of 126.7. The all-rounder has also scalped 59 wickets at an economy rate of 7.46 and an average of 28.