IPL Auction 2018: Son of a labourer, Kashmiri Manzoor Dar (Pandav) is ready to wreak havoc for KXIP

On Sunday, Virender Sehwag and Preity Zinta’s Kings XI Punjab picked up Kashmiri batting sensation Manzoor Dar for this edition’s IPL. Dar, nicknamed, Pandav after the Mahabharata’s Bhim for his immense strength and size.

Known for his power-hitting, he was won a couple of matches in the recently concluded Mushtaq Ali T20 North Zone tournament for Jammu and Kashmir.  

He was bought by KXIP for his of Rs 20 lakh and will be teaming up with big man Chris Gayle, who was also picked at the fag end of the auction.

However, other J&K cricketers were given a miss. Parvez Rasool, who was capped wasn’t even part of the auction, while Umar Nazir didn’t fetch any bids.

Interestingly, Dar is called Mr 100 metre sixer. His coach Abdul Qayoom had told News 18: “He is Mr 100 metre sixer man. He gives the ball a real thump. Last year in a match with Punjab, he hit a few sixes that were 100 metres plus," recalls Qayoom. 

His coach explained that his 6 feet two inches, 84 kg ward could tilt the game in the space of 12 to 15 deliveries.

He reportedly got the nickname after he carried home three members of the opposite side into his own half. The soon of a labourer he hails from a poor family and they often struggle to make ends meet. He even juggles a few jobs, working as a security guard at night and wood craftsman by day, while packing in a few hours of practice.

For years he cycled from his workplace to the stadium, unable to pay fare. His big six-hitting abilities has made him part of folklore and local clubs pay him to destroy the opposition.

KXIP has now done that on a much bigger scale and the Kashmiri Pandav might soon be wreaking havoc in the Indian Premier League with a little tutelage from the likes of Chris Gayle and Virender Sehwag.

New IPL signee Manzoor ‘Pandav’ Dar of Bandipore in J&K says he got his unusual nickname in a kabaddi game. While making a raid, three opponents latched on to the 6’2 Dar who lifted all of them -Bhim like- into his half. He’s also known as the 100m six man. https://t.co/mTAeYsclUM

— jonathan selvaraj (@jon_selvaraj) January 28, 2018

Thank you to the @lionsdenkxip for providing me opportunitie to Show the world What I am.
I’m extremely excited to Join the #PunjabiBoys Cant wait
#IPL2018

— Manzoor Pandav (@pandav_manzoor) January 28, 2018

Congratulations & all the best for the tournament. Look forward to watching you play. https://t.co/XP3OxM0I3p

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) January 28, 2018

Twenty20 freelance Chris Gayle found a team at the third time of asking while seam bowlers Jaydev Unadkat and Andrew Tye earned big on the second and final day of the player auction ahead of this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) on Sunday.

West Indian Gayle went unsold in two rounds with none of the eight franchises looking interested in the swashbuckling left-hander whose five centuries in IPL is the most by any batsman.

It was in the third round that Kings XI Punjab bought Gayle, IPL's leading six-hitter, at his base price of 20 million Indian rupees ($314,613).

Unadkat emerged as the most expensive Indian buy from the two-day auction when the 26-year-old was sold to Rajasthan Royals for 115 million rupees.

Australian Tye, who has played four one-day internationals, also earned big money with Kings XI Punjab buying him for 72 million rupees.

The nature of the format means while the lesser known pacers were in demand, South African stalwart Dale Steyn did not find a team.

England's limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan suffered the fate of test captain Joe Root after going unsold in the auction.

Rajasthan bought all-rounder Ben Stokes for $1.97 million on Saturday, while also adding his England team mate and wicketkeeper Jos Buttler to their squad.

Sandeep Lamichhane became the first player from Nepal to land an IPL deal when the 17-year-old was picked by Delhi Daredevils for two million rupees.

The 11th edition of the Twenty20 tournament begins in Mumbai on April 7.

This is what the squad for this year looks like -

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB): Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Tim Southee, Chris Woakes, Parthiv Patel, Umesh Yadav, Quinton de Kock, Manan Vohra, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Moeen Ali, Sarfaraz Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Mandeep Singh, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Yuzvendra Chahal, Aniket Choudhary, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Colin de Grandhomme, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Mitchell Johnson, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Mitchell Starc, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Javon Searles, Ishank Jaggi, Cameron Delport, Chris Lynn, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh

Chennai Super Kings (CSK): MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Shane Watson, M Vijay, Kedar Jadhav, Harbhajan Singh, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Lungi Ngidi, Sam Billings, Karn Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Mark Wood, Jagadeesan Narayan, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Mitchell Santner, Dhruv Shorey, Kshitiz Sharma, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Monu Kumar, Kanishk Seth, Asif KM

Delhi Daredevils (DD): Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Glenn Maxwell, Mohammed Shami, Prithvi Shaw, Trent Boult, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem, Naman Ojha, Abhishek Sharma, Manjot Kalra, Colin Munro, Harshal Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Vijay Shankar, Daniel Christian, Gurkeerat Singh, Kagiso Rabada, Avesh Khan, Sayan Ghosh, Sandeep Lamichhane, Chris Morris, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant

Mumbai Indians (MI): Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, JP Duminy, Krunal Pandya, Pat Cummins, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Tajinder Singh, Mayank Markande, Mohsin Khan, Ben Cutting, Jason Behrendorff, Pradeep Sangwan, Mustafizur Rahman, Aditya Tare, Saurabh Tiwary, Siddhesh Lad, Evin Lewis, Suryakumar Yadav, Akila Dananjaya, Ishan Kishan, Sharad Lumba, MD Nidheesh

Rajasthan Royals (RR): Ajinkya Rahane, Steven Smith, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson, Aryaman Birla, Midhun S, Stuart Binny, Dhawal Kulkarni, Darcy Short, Ben Laughlin, Jatin Saxena, Shreyas Gopal, Anureet Singh, Jaydev Unadkat, Ankit Sharma, Gowtham Krishnappa, Rahul Tripathi, Prashant Chopra, Dushmantha Chameera, Jofra Archer, Zahir Khan, Mahipal Lomror

Kings XI Punjab (KXIP): Yuvraj Singh, R Ashwin, Karun Nair, KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch, David Miller, Mayank Agarwal, Mujeeb Zadran, Manzoor Dar, Marcus Stoinis, Pardeep Sahu, Manoj Tiwary, Andrew Tye, Akshdeep Nath, Mohit Sharma, Barinder Sran, Ankit Rajpoot, Ben Dwarshuis, Mayank Dagar, Axar Patel

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH): Bhuvneshwar Kumar, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Wriddhiman Saha, Shikhar Dhawan, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan, Chris Jordan, Manish Pandey, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Bipul Sharma, Sachin Baby, Sandeep Sharma, Carlos Brathwaite, Mehdi Hasan, Deepak Hooda, Billy Stanlake, Ricky Bhui, Basil Thampi, Tanmay Agarwal, Rashid Khan, Natarajan, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammad Nabi

The 2018 edition of the T20 lucrative tournament is slated to be held from April 7 to May 27.