He bats attractively in the middle order and bowls accurate slow left arm. He's also an excellent fielder, but more to the point, Ravindra Jadeja is now $2 million richer thanks to the IPL auction. Even more remarkably, slow left armer Sunil Narine of Trinidad and Tobago is now $750K richer, this despite only having three first class and 40 one-day wickets to his name.
There's no real logic to the IPL auction and at times it is akin to taking a pair of your grandad's old pants along to Antiques Roadshow and getting them valued at six figures. I'm likewise unconvinced that Andre Russell of Jamaica represents value for money at $450K. Good luck to all of these guys, who have effectively secured their futures with this year's IPL, but you wonder who is authorising the spend. I could only be more surprised if Derbyshire announced this year's T20 game-changer was Richie Benaud...
It is the disparate values that amazes me. The prices above are in stark contrast to $50K for Herschelle Gibbs, a much better value signing based on his Big Bash performances. Of other Big Bash stars, Brad Hodge must be seriously chuffed with $475K at his stage of career, while the Lazarus-style revival of Brad Hogg concludes with his joining Hodge at the Rajasthan Royals for $180K. Robin Peterson will give good value at $100K, while the Delhi Daredevils have picked up a gem in Kiwi Doug Bracewell. I think he will emerge over the next three years as a genuine world-class all-rounder and at 21 he has the world at his feet. At $50K he represents a steal.
It makes you wonder what Martin Guptill will have cost, yet with the likes of Bopara, Sarwan, Klinger and the excellent Brendan Taylor unsigned, there's no guarantee that logic would have seen a big money deal. I'm just grateful that the genial Kiwi is back with us this season. It is evident from Tom Holdcroft's excellent interview on the club site that he enjoys his cricket in Derbyshire and I just hope that when he mentions young players "having a couple of big seasons coming up" it is an indicator that he might be up for a longer stay in 2013. There's not many better players around and available, that's for sure.
Mind you, with his compatriot Brendon McCullum a cool $900K richer tonight, I wouldn't blame you, Martin Guptill, for having a portion of that pie another year.
Because, as they said in that perfume advert a while back, you're at least worth it.
The sort of money being throw around like confetti is ridiculous. I don,t blame players for taking it,but there has to be something wrong with a system that allows it. It is out of all proportion and cannot be good for the long term health of the game.
ReplyDeleteIf millions are thrown around like that, is because there is likely quite some profit to be made from the whole show. I want to repeat myself, those $$$ are better in the pockets of the players, than in the pockets of the administrators.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I'm baffled as anybody else that certain good players are sold for 50k while certain bad ones are going for millions, but given that the league is still relatively young and that some franchises are owned by some bunch of actors only to get some publicity, I believe things will get better with time; if anybody remembers the first IPL auction, it was way worse than this last one.
My only concern is for the first class game; as we've seen with the last TV-rights deal with Sky, quite a few grands are also made from it, so if you want to compete with the IPL in the future, you have to open your wallet a bit; tradition and prestige are still on your side, dear ECB, but you better take some serious countermeasures now (instead of some dumb reports that just advices to lower the salary cap, shrink the championship and increase the T20) before it'll be too late; like it or not, IPL is probably here to stay, and you can't just hope for the old times to come back by themselves.
Marco
Fair comments guys, thank you!
ReplyDeletePeakfan, we have got to realise that 20/20 is where the money is and its time our club woke up to this fact! Although it hurts to say Leicestershire are more proof of this.
ReplyDeleteBen
Expecting the ECB to do anything that resembles sanity is about as likely as the Titanic re-surfacing.
ReplyDeleteThe Morgan report is a half baked load of b*****ks that in my opinion will turn people away from cricket in their droves. The T20 is here to stay,at least in the forseeable future,so why the hell go back to 50 over cricket when most people want shorter forms of the game?. It,s a catastrophic error of judgement which makes no sense whatsover in the real world. 50 over cricket is,for the most part,ten overs of action and fourty overs of boredom. Not withstanding the fact that it lasts all day,which is precisely what people DONT want. The incompetence of some of these people in power is matched only by their own self importance and as a result,cricket is pressing it,s own self destruct button.
Can't argue Marc and Ben - that's why we're after a game-changer in the T20. Just who is the question...
ReplyDeleteI dont know Peakfan. It,s not an easy one to answer. You know my view that its batsmen and not bowlers who win these sort of games. If we had a couple of big hitters to complement our existing players,it wouldn,t really matter who was bowling at them.
ReplyDelete...Just to finish,im not even convinced you need to be a specialist bowler to succeed in T20. Someone like Dan Redfern or other part timers are just as likely to succeed as a main line seamer. The smart move is to take the pace off the ball.
ReplyDelete