Delhi Daredevils have been perhaps the biggest underperformers in the history of the T20 franchise competitions, having never even made it to a single final at the Indian Premier League (IPL) or the Champions League T20 (CLT20). They seemed to change that on Saturday by playing smartly as far as their new buys for the upcoming season were concerned. But that was probably not the case as the franchise tried aggressively to go after several lesser-known players with huge amounts of money. (Also Check: IPL 2016 Player Auctions Live Updates: Mumbai Indians buy Nathu Singh for 3.2 crores)
With a purse as large as Rs 37.5 crores on Saturday, Delhi scalped Sanju Samson (Rs 4.2 crores), Chris Morris (Rs 7 crores), Carlos Braithwate (Rs 4.2 crore), Karun Nair (Rs 4 crores), Pawan Negi (Rs 8.5 crores) and Rishabh Pant (Rs 1.9 crores). Meanwhile, Sam Billings (Rs 30 lakh) was an exception as a Delhi scalp on Saturday as far as his price was concerned, though not in terms of star power. Delhi also bagged Joel Paris (Rs 30 lakh), Pratyush Singh (Rs 10 lakh), Syed Khaleel Ahmed (Rs 10 lakh), Akhil Arvind Herwadkar (Rs 10 lakh), Mahipal Lomror (Rs 10 lakh), Chama Milind (Rs 10 lakh) and Pawan Suyal (Rs 10 lakh).
May be it seemed that the franchise was going after the players in a hurry, knowing they had the luxury of spending big with the surplus money available with them. They kept a low-profile with respect to the players they selected on Saturday, going with the theme of their squad in general.
Squad: Jean-Paul Duminy, Mohammed Shami, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Quinton de Kock, Saurabh Tiwary, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mayank Agarwal, Imran Tahir, Jayant Yadav, Amit Mishra, Shreyas Iyer, Zaheer Khan, Albie Morkel, Sanju Samson, Chris Morris, Carlos Braithwate, Karun Nair, Pawan Negi, Sam Billings, Joel Paris, Pratyush Singh, Akhil Arvind Herwadkar, Mahipal Lomror, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Chama Milind, Pawan Suyal and Rishabh Pant.