Australia captain Pat Cummins had a roller coaster outing at the IPL auction on Tuesday. He first became the most expensive player ever in the IPL history as his price soared past the Rs 20 crore mark. Sunrisers Hyderabad signed Cummins for Rs 20.5 crore. Cummins had gone past Sam Curran as the most expensive IPL buy of all-time after the Punjab Kings dished out Rs 18.5 crore for the English allrounder in last year’s auction.
However, shortly after, Cummins’ teammate, Mitchell Starc, was snapped up by KKR for a jaw-dropping Rs 24.75 crore!
As for Cummins, there was a bidding war between CSK and MI before RCB swooped in. Shortly after, SRH joined the tug of war.
RCB and SRH then engaged in an intense bidding war much to the amusement of those present in the room. SRH did not back away and eventually bagged Cummins.
“Someone else desperately wanted him as well; that’s why he got pushed to that high number. Because our team is relatively settled, we have the budget, and we have already picked up Travis Head and Wanindu Hasaranga, we felt like we’d covered most things that we wanted at the auction, so we had the ability to spend that much,” said Daniel Vettori, SRH head coach.
The fast bowler has previously been a part of Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR signed him for a then-record sum of Rs 15.5 crore in the 2020 auction. Cummins was released and bought back by the franchise two seasons later for nearly a million dollars (Rs 7.25 crore).
Cummins’ 14-ball half century, scored for KKR against Mumbai Indians in 2022, is the joint second-fastest fifty in IPL.
In 42 outings in IPL, Cummins has 45 wickets at an economy rate of 8.54 as well as 359 runs.
Cummins led Australia to the World Test Championship title in June, followed it up by retaining the Ashes in England, and then beat India at home to win the ODI World Cup.
Cummins is set to return to the IPL after pulling out of this year’s competition with Kolkata Knight Riders, citing a heavy workload that included an India Test tour, World Test Championship final, the Ashes and an ODI World Cup.
Cummins had said that 2024 IPL would come as ideal preparation for the T20 World Cup, set to start days after the IPL final.
“I feel like I haven’t played a heap of T20 cricket and in some ways I feel like I haven’t played my best T20 cricket for a little while,” he said.
SRH began the auction with Rs 34 crore in the bank but after signing Cummins, Travis Head and Wanindu Hasaranga, it was left with just Rs 5.2 crore.
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