On Saturday, after buying Gautam Gambhir, Delhi Daredevils coach Ricky Ponting confirmed that the Delhi lad would lead the Daredevils team. He said that the former KKR captain had conveyed that he would love to lead the DD side, which has never won the IPL.
On Saturday, after buying Gautam Gambhir, Delhi Daredevils coach Ricky Ponting confirmed that the Delhi lad would lead the Daredevils team. He said that the former KKR captain had conveyed that he would love to lead the DD side, which has never won the IPL.
Ponting said: “Yeah, we have had a fair bit of thought into that [captaincy]. It's likely that Gambhir right now will lead Delhi next season. He sort of conveyed that he would like to come back to Delhi and hopefully lead the team. It's pretty hard to fault his leadership credentials. We felt that little bit of experience would help. I am sure Gautam would do a good job for us.”
Indian players dominated the bidding wars as KL Rahul and Manish Pandey laughed their way to the bank with multi-million dollar deals but England all- rounder Ben Stokes once again emerged the costliest buy in the IPL auctions, here today.
Despite all the off-field controversies, Stokes was snapped up for a whopping Rs 12.5 crore (USD 1.96 million) by Rajasthan Royals after Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings also engaged in a fierce bidding war for him.
The franchises were smart in their choices with most of the current India players attracting significant interest.
Stylish opener Rahul and middle-order batsman Pandey bagged deals worth Rs 11 crore (USD 1.73 million) from Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad respectively.
With their prices sky-rocketing, the two players' original franchises RCB and KKR didn't use their Right To Match (RTM) cards.
Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan Arman's reputation as one of the most sought after bowlers in the shortest format was once again affirmed as Sunrisers Hyderabad used their Right To Match (RTM) card to buy him back for Rs 9 crore (USD 1.41 million).
The Karnataka players had a field day at the auctions with India discard Karun Nair also triggering a bidding war before Kings XI Punjab got him for Rs 5.60 crore (USD 880,000).
Kedar Jadhav, one of Mahendra Singh Dhoni 'Go To Man' during his last stint as India captain, also fetched a healthy price of Rs 7.80 crore for his all-round qualities of batting, round-arm off-spin and back-up wicket-keeping. He was snapped by the Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings.
Chennai, however, didn't bid vigorously for Ravichandran Ashwin, who will now ply his trade for Kings XI Punjab at a salary of Rs 7.60 crore (USD 1.19 million).
Some of the proven T20 specialists like Sanju Samson also earned big bucks as Rajasthan Royals bought him back for Rs 8 crore while Robin Uthappa's pyrotechnics earned him a callback from KKR at Rs 6.4 crore (USD 1 million approx).
With inputs from PTi
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 "Ricky Ponting and Gautam Gambhir")
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