IPL 2024 Auction Biggest Trends: World Cup winners, uncapped Indians celebrate, overseas spinners ignored

Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 mini-auction saw the 10 franchises splurging wholeheartedly once again. A little more kindly than before as the record for the top two most expensive players of all time was set at the Coca Cola Arena in Dubai on Tuesday. Overall, 72 players including 30 overseas cricketers were snapped for a total money spent of Rs 230.54 crore. Unlike a mega auction which is expected to take place ahead of IPL 2025, the 2024 auction was hosted to help the teams plug in the existing gaps.

IPL 2024 Auction: Full squads of ten teams, purse remaining and available slots

Franchises grabbed the opportunity with both hands and went toe-to-toe to acquire some of the best players, however, uncapped players also raked in the moolah. Amid all the spending spree, the IPL teams also showed some cautiousness in ignoring certain sorts of players while chasing a few with diligence.

Read | IPL 2024 Auction: Josh Inglis, Phil Salt and other big snubs

We take a look at the major trends to emerge from the IPL 2024 Auction where Australian World Cup winners and Indian uncapped players emerged as the biggest winners.

World Cup performance rewarded

Mitchell Starc became the most expensive player in the history of IPL with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) paying Rs 24.75 crore for his services. Starc broke his Australian captain Pat Cummins’ record who had fetched Rs 20.5 crore from Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) just a while ago. They were not the only ODI World Cup winners who landed big deals. Travis Head was picked up by SRH for Rs 6.8 crore. Not only the winners, but even the top performers from the tournament fetched big deals.

New Zealand, who made the semi-finals, had Daryl Mitchell joining Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for Rs 14 crore. Another Kiwi, Rachin Ravindra, who lit up the World Cup with his performances also went to CSK for Rs 1.8 crore. Gerald Coetzee who took 20 wickets for South Africa joined Mumbai Indians for Rs 5 crore. All these purchases showed that teams followed a recency bias and that good performances in the World Cup are like a guarantee for earning a big payday.

Pacers, not spinners are the flavour of the season

Five of the top six buys were pacers at IPL 2024 Auction. Apart from Starc and Cummins for whom IPL sides were ready to pay through the nose, even Harshal Patel (Rs 11.75 crore), Spencer Johnson (Rs 10 crore), Shivam Mavi (Rs 6.4 crore), Yash Dayal (Rs 5 crore) and Shardul Thakur (Rs 4 crore) went big bucks.

Capped pacers, overseas and Indians, were in big demand as the team searched for balance. Spinners also were in demand, Indian spinners, such as uncapped Manimaran Siddharth (Rs 2.4 crore)and Manav Suthar (Rs 20 lakh) were quickly snapped up but Adil Rashid, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi and Akeal Hosein were ignored, despite all of them having considerable international experience. Wanindu Hasaranga was picked up by SRH for Rs 1.5 crore.

Uncapped Indian talent shines

There were overseas options aplenty but the IPL franchises decided to trust the Indian young talent. We already saw how uncapped pacers and spinners were in demand, but even batters had a good time. Sameer Rizvi earned a Rs 8.4 crore deal from CSK. Kumar Kushagra was bought by Delhi Capitals for Rs 7.2 crore.

With the IPL 2024 Auction now done and dusted, it’s time for teams to convert their plans into action and that will be the focus for the new purchases as well.