IPL 2018 auction's most expensive Indian Jayadev Unadkat admits he wanted to reunite with MS Dhoni at CSK

The IPL’s most expensive player so far at this year’s auction, Jaydev Unadkat admitted he wanted to reunite with Mahendra Singh Dhoni with whom he played at the Royal Pune Supergiants and under whose tutelage he really blossomed as a bowler!

One of the standout performers of the last IPL, Unadkat thrilled with his pace and slower ones, even taking a maiden hat-trick in the last over of the innings.

Speaking about becoming the most expensive player, he said he was watching the action with his entire extended family including cousins after which he gone to practise with his Ranji team Saurashtra. He said he had just come to Rajkot on the day and was practising with his teammates after which they were watching the live stream of the auction.

There was a fierce bidding war for Unadkat’s services between Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab before Rajasthan Royals swooped in at the eleventh hour to take him away from the two. When asked if he had any preferences, he admitted that he was hoping for a nostalgic reunion with his mentor ‘Mahi bhai’ who had guided him during his time at Royal Pune SuperGiants.

He said: “Mahi bhai (Mahendra Singh Dhoni) was guiding me, I was hoping to get a leader, it will be the best for me. I think having been there and done that, it was easy to coordinate. I didn't have any favourites to be honest.”

While Unadkat is going to be reunited with his RPS captain Steve Smith, there’s no denying that the youngster will miss the avuncular touch of Captain Cool with whom he seems to have formed quite a touching teacher-student relationship.

Speaking about his improvement, he said  that he had worked hard on his fitness, on doing simple things right. He spoke about the tutelage of former Pakistani legend Wasim Akram at Kolkata Knight Riders, of learning from Zaheer Khan (who was in the Indian team when he debuted in 2010) and how he worked on being mentally and physically fit.

The 26-year-old paceman has had an interesting career, making his Test debut at the age of 19 during South Africa tour in 2010. Three years later, he made his ODI debut and after another three years, he made his T20I debut.

He was bought by the Daredevils in the 2014 IPL auction. After plying his skills for RCB in 13 matches in IPL 2013 he was called up in to the India squad. The Daredevils released him after IPL 2014 but bought him back at the 2015 Player Auction. Then RPS bought him in the 2016 Player Auction.

He however he really came into his own in the 2017 season where he took the team to the final, where a bad batting performance kept them from beating Mumbai Indians in the final. The left-arm pacer notched up 24 wickets.

He was also excellent in getting early breakthroughs. He had described a newfound confidence playing for RPS saying: “Probably that hunger to do well was the difference from the past couple of seasons. It’s just about capitalising on it. In the past, one bad game and I was out of the reckoning.”

His excellent form continued for India as well with the youngster picking up the Man of the Series award in T20-series to inflict a 3-0 whitewash on Sri Lanka. The young kid that Wasim Akram asked us to watch out for has truly matured and not many will put it past him combining with Ben Stokes to take Rajasthan Royals to their second IPL title.