Last Updated on 4 years by Charbel Coorey
IPL 2020: Rating the 5 Most Expensive Players from the Auction | Rating the 5 most expensive players from the IPL 2020 Auction
The price that a player attracts in the auctions acts as an additional weightage to his outings in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Naturally, the franchises must harbor high expectations from those individuals too, given the amount of capital that is invested in them. However, the players fail to live up to those projections on multiple occasions.
Whether they are bogged down by the inseparable price-tag is unknown, but on several instances it seems like the team-managements tend to overestimate a player’s potential and performances. The cricketer can’t be termed guilty in such a scenario, but he has to take all the criticism lying down; firstly, because he is the one raking all the money and secondly, such is the nature of the system. In this article, we analyze and rate the performances of the five most expensive players from the IPL 2020 auctions.
1. Pat Cummins – INR 15.5 crore: 5/10
It was rather surprising to watch Kolkata Knight Riders break the bank to secure Pat Cummins, considering that his credentials in the T20 format are modest at best. That was visible in the season as the world’s top-ranked Test bowler struggled to carve an impact that his price-tag suggested that he would. Cummins ranked at the 19th spot in the list of the highest wicket-takers, despite playing all 14 games for his team. He managed to scalp only 12 wickets, but did so at an impressive economy rate of 7.86.
He finished wicket-less in eight out of the 14 encounters that he played, which included a run of five successive matches October 3 to October 16 when the pacer failed to secure even a single dismissal. Perhaps the true demonstration of his potential came in the last match of KKR’s campaign, which was a must-win one for the team. Cummins took four key wickets of the Rajasthan Royals but in retrospect it seems to be too little, too late. The Aussie turned out to be quite handy with the bat though, scoring 146 runs at a strike rate of 128.07 that included a solitary half-century too.
2. Glenn Maxwell – INR 10.75 crore: 1/10
Glenn Maxwell’s underwhelming returns in the IPL continued as Kings XI Punjab bore the brunt for spending INR 10.75 crore on the Aussie maverick. The dynamic middle-order batsman scored a total of 108 runs in 13 matches this season, at a strike rate of 101.88. Maxwell didn’t score a single six during the entire duration of the tournament! Jofra Archer, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar…these are the players who ended up with more runs to their name than Maxwell in IPL 2020.
It can be argued that the former Mumbai Indians player wasn’t utilized properly, or rather given enough deliveries to settle in the crease. The batsman played over 20 balls in only one of his 11 innings this season. However, Maxwell didn’t manage to create any influence in any of his other outings either. He simply struggled to get going at any point of time, which made the Kings drop their most expensive purchase of the auctions in their final must-win encounter against the Chennai Super Kings.
3: Chris Morris – INR 10 crore: 6/10
Royal Challengers Bangalore will rue Christopher Morris’ fitness issues that made him participate in only nine of the team’s 15 encounters this season. Morris did seem to have added an extra bit of incisiveness and edge to the team’s bowling attack. He bowled the back of length deliveries extremely well and the additional bounce that he obtained due to his height toughened things up for the batsmen initially.
However, even his performances for RCB can be divided into two halves, as it seemed that the opposition had found a way to tackle him as the tournament progressed. In Morris’ first four games, he bowled 16 overs at an economy rate of 5.25 and scalped nine wickets in the process. In his next five games, the Protea pacer delivered 15.4 overs at an economy rate of 8.83.
Moreover, he took only two wickets in these five matches and had to sit out of RCB’s crucial Eliminator game against the Sunrisers Hyderbad due to fitness concerns. Some might argue that the Virat Kohli-led side would have fared well had Morris played all the encounters. That’s a fairly viable proposition but given the way his performances faltered as the season progressed, it is rather tricky to accept that conjecture.
Also read: Who was the best uncapped Indian player in IPL 2020?
4: Sheldon Cottrell – INR 8.5 crore: 4/10
Sheldon Cottrell was deemed to spearhead Kings XI Punjab’s bowling unit, and hence the franchise spent a sizable INR 8.5 crore on him. However, the left-arm pacer underwent an inconsistent journey of six games as he was dropped thereafter and didn’t participate in eight of the 14 matches that the team played.
In Cottrell’s three of the first four games (against DC, RCB, MI respectively), the Caribbean pacer delivered 11 overs at an economy rate of 5.54 and scalped five wickets in total. In his other three matches (against RR, CSK, SRH respectively), the fast-bowler bowled nine overs at an economy rate of 12.77 and could dismiss only a solitary batsman.
The team’s poor form as a whole made them drop the bowler from the lineup for the second-half of the tournament. Though they attained considerable success thereafter, it seemed like the management could have persisted with the West Indian pacer considering that his counterpart and teammate Chris Jordon didn’t set the stage on fire when in the XI either.
It can also be argued that the Kings XI relied on Cottrell to solve their death-bowling woes, a skill that he necessarily does not excel in as such. Nevertheless, the fast-bowler would have left the UAE slightly disappointed; both with himself and the team’s think-tank too.
Also read: IPL 2020 Team of the Tournament
5: Nathan Coulter-Nile – INR 8 crore: 6/10
Given the fearsomeness of Mumbai Indians’ bowling unit, Nathan Coulter-Nile might seem like a viable alternative for the opposition to milk runs from during the innings. Hence, Mumbai Indians bidding INR 8 crore for the Australian quick was intriguing in all honesty. Maybe, they valued his prowess with the willow towards the fag ends of the innings?
That could be a possibility, but is fair to say that Coulter-Nile reinvented himself to not become a punching bag for the other team in the later stages of the tournament. In his first game of IPL 2020, the fast-bowler conceded 51 runs in four overs and took only a solitary wicket. However, he bowled 18 overs in his last five games and gave away runs at only 6.77 rpo, taking four wickets in the process.
It is true that the duo of Trent Boult and Jasprit Bumrah did most of the damage upfront and made the job easier for Coulter-Nile in the middle-overs. But, the 33-year-old did live up to the franchise’s expectations from him despite not starting the season ahead of James Pattinson earlier on.
Written by Tarkesh Jha. Follow Tarkesh on Twitter today.
