THE BIGGEST LETDOWN PLAYERS IN THE IPL
The IPL is tournament which roughly last for 45/50 days, and where thousands of Crore Rupees are involved in this short span. Here the franchise owners spend Crore of rupees to acquire a player for their team, and it is expected that players will perform. But some times it so happens that a player who has not been paid a higher fees performs brilliantly and at the other end a very high value and highly respected player play miserably throughout the tournament. In the first case value of the player increases for the next season and in the second case it becomes disappointment for the franchise management and also in the next season franchise owner will not retain the player, and the player will have to go under auction and he will not be paid very high case. Take the case of India’s Yuvraj Singh, few years back he was sold for Rs 14 Cr in auction, and during 2019 auction he remained unsold for first few rounds, and afterwards he was picked up by Mumbai Indians for his base price of Rs 1 Cr, the reason being his performance has not been up to the mark during last few seasons, and hence every year his price went on going down.
Now let us talk of some International Legends who proved to disaster in IPL
IPL has witnessed many wonderful cricketers since its inception and it has become a platform for the players to get into the limelight overnight. But some of the successful cricketers in their international career made a poor show in IPL. Let us have a glance at some of such players.
- VVS Laxman
He is one of the elegant batsmen the Indian cricket ever has seen. He made a record partnership with Rahul Dravid to win a test match against Australia. He is one of the expert players who did a wonderful performance on the grounds of Australia. He has some glorious records from his long cricket career of 16 years. In IPL, he played three seasons for Deccan Chargers and two seasons for Kochi Tuskers. He scored 282 runs off 20 innings with a strike rate of 105, a negligible number when his potential is considered.
- Andrew Flintoff
He is one of the best all-rounders of his time. He picked around 169 ODI wickets and 226 test wickets. He is the man who is a match-winner for Ashes Test Series a decade ago. He is compared to his forerunner Ian Botham regarding his competency. He played for CSK in his only IPL season and scored only 62 runs off 3 games and picked only 2 wickets with an economy rate of 10. Being a hard hitter, he failed to prove his capability in IPL.
- Shivnarine Chanderpaul
He is one of the formidable players for West Indies. He is one of the classy players for the team after the likes of Brian Lara. He is known for his potential to trouble the bowlers on any kind of wicket though he is not a hitter. He played for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first edition of IPL and scored only 25 runs at the strike rate of 80.
- Michael Clarke
He is one of the successful skippers for the Aussies who lifted World cup 2015 and Ashes Trophy. He is the great player of the kind of Ricky Ponting, Mc Grath, and Shane Warne. He slammed centuries against New Zealand, India, South Africa and Sri Lanka at the test average of 48 and ODI average of 44. But in IPL, he played for Pune Warriors and scored 98 runs in 6 innings at a strike rate of 104.
- Ricky Ponting
Undoubtedly, he is one of the greatest cricketers in the World and was one of the most successful captains for Australia. He has a mind-blowing average of 51 in Tests and 42 in one-dayers. He holds the records of highest runs by an Australian and highest centuries by an Australian. But he did not play well for Kolkata Knight Riders in the first IPL and in the next season, he played for Mumbai Indians. He scored just 91 runs in 9 innings at an average of 10 and strike rate of 71.09.
Above mentioned players really let down their teams in the IPL, although they were holding big reputations to their names.
Hoping you enjoyed reading this article.
Waiting for your views.
Anil Malik
30 November 2021