Just like international cricket, earning a contract at the auction and then going onto play for the franchise at the world’s most lucrative league, IPL is one heck of a challenge for any professional cricketer. Inspite of this being true, some have managed to earn a bid for themselves very early in their cricketing career and now considered amongst the experienced players available at the league. Their franchises obviously look up to them in high regards and expect them to pull off remarkable performances game after game. IPL 2021 will be the last tournament before the two new teams get inducted in the 2022 season.
While few of them have managed to fulfil the responsibility with aplomb, others haven’t exactly done that and thus, were excluded from the playing XI. Their current status is that of a reserved cricketer, who is compelled to warm the benches despite possessing so much talent and experience. Speculations are rife that they might completely be ignored if don’t perform well in the upcoming edition, who were all picked in the accelerated auction at the end. In the below piece, we look at 4 such players for whom IPL 2021 will be a do or die :
1. Umesh Yadav
An important member of the Indian Test contingent, Umesh has found it tough to replicate his red-ball form in white-ball cricket. This was the main reason why he lost his place in the Indian team for the limited-overs formats.
The speedster has pace, can swing the ball both ways and also extracts seam movement with the new ball, making him an ideal candidate operating in any given format. Unfortunately, in recent years he has been more on the shorter side, marking it easy pickings for the batsmen.
Being released by RCB, Umesh was picked at his base price of 1 crore by DC. Needless to say, this season will be the last opportunity for him to turn things around in his favour. Umesh has dismissed 119 batsmen in 121 games at an average of 30.08 and an economy rate of 8.51 in the IPL so far.
2. Kedar Jadhav
A hugely talented cricketer, who achieved tremendous success in his early 30s, Jadhav had to endure a very tough phase in his career in the last few years. Neither his flamboyant batting nor his wicket-taking part-time off-spin is coming of help, keeping him afloat in this testing period.
In a season that had very little moments of joy for CSK, Jadhav‘s disgraceful showings added to the woes of the franchise, who couldn’t find a way out. Eventually, they crashed out of the tournament even before the coveted playoffs, marking their first-ever such instance.
The Indian international was obviously released and has now earned a bid of 2 crores from SRH ahead of IPL 2021. Jadhav has smashed 1141 runs from 87 games at an average of 22.82 and strike rate of 124.16.
3. Harbhajan Singh
This veteran Indian spinner is well past his prime with respect to playing professional cricket and his absence from the last IPL season, raises a question mark on his fitness and effectivity to pull off magical performances as he did in the past.
With abundant spin resources in their ranks, CSK made the right call of releasing him ahead of the auction and bestowing Singh with an opportunity to try his luck for some other franchise during his last few playing years.
After going unsold initially, Singh was later snapped up by KKR at his base price of 2 crores at the recently concluded mini-auction ahead of IPL 2021. The offie has scalped 150 wickets from 160 games at an average of 26.45 and an economy rate of 7.05 at the IPL.
4. Karun Nair
A talented Karnataka batsman, Nair is one of those few players, who relies on timing and placement rather than power to garner boundaries and sixes. It is this grace and elegance which also assisted him in making his India debut in both whites and coloured clothing.
Nair, however, found it tough to get going in the limited fixtures that he played for KXIP, compelling the management to replace him with some other bright talent. There is absolutely no doubt about his capabilities but it is the aspect of consistency which he would like to work on in order to prolong his cricketing career.
Being a prodigious Indian batsman, Nair was bought by KKR at his base price of 50 lakh, providing another reliable option in the middle order if needed.
Nair has stroked 1480 runs from 73 games at an average of 24.26 and strike rate of 128.36 in his IPL career so far.
