Analysis of recent IPL trades
Avesh for Padikkal plus Hardik to MI - let's try and make it make sense!
Several days ago when the swap deal for Avesh Khan (to Rajasthan Royals) and Devdutt Padikkal (to Lucknow Super Giants) was announced, I tweeted that it was probably a good deal for all parties:-
I received quite a few messages following the post, so I thought I’d try and give some further insight into why I think it’s a good deal for both parties and to try and answer some of the questions which I was asked.
Here are some replies/questions that I want to address:-
RR need Indian bowlers for sure - Yes, all IPL teams do. Just like in most T20 leagues, high-quality domestic pace bowlers are some of the rarest commodities in the player pool. This has the potential to push the price of available pacers up in an auction dynamic (because multiple teams will be fighting to get a rare commodity) and in particular, in a mini auction like the upcoming auction where proven domestic performers are even more scarce.
Looking at batters rumoured to be traded or picking up interest if they are released, people are linking Manish Pandey and Karun Nair. This is a great illustration of the scarcity of resources point with both batters at the wrong end of the age curve and having struggled to make impact for a number of seasons.
Don't u think Dan It they would have tried getting avesh from auction it would not have costed them 10.5cr or at Max not more than that They will go into auction with almost negligible purse now
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They could have got both of them at cheaper price in auction
I don’t think it’s certain by any stretch of the imagination that they would have been cheaper at auction. As mentioned in the previous reply, pricing at mini auction can be pretty crazy due to scarcity of resources, and in particular, scarcity of high-quality domestic resources.
Dan would that [Padikkal joining LSG] mean qdk and mayers getting released - We will find out soon enough. I’d be very surprised if De Kock was released after how good a World Cup he has just had. Mayers possibly but he’s cheap (50 lakh).
Paddikal still doesn't have a opening spot. How is it good for him? De Kock only played four matches last season, Mayers played 13 but arguably his stock has fallen since after a mediocre 2023 CPL - so it is far from inconceivable that Padikkal could slot instead of one of those two overseas players alongside KL Rahul.
I think also this suits the team combination for both the teams as well. RR had to play devdutt padikal at number 4 as buttler and Yashashvi jaiswal were opening, devdutt opens in domestics or wherever he plays, his stats in opening are really good. Yes, RR’s purchase of Padikkal seems like the frequent scenario of buying a good player but not having a real plan of how to use them. It happens a lot in various sports.
Do You This this is good deal because they already have an indian good pacers. Then why waste 10Cr on more. Sandeep Sharma Prasidh Krishna Navdeep Saini Kuldeep Sen Trent boult Km Asif. What you think?
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How this will benefit RR Dan? Too many no 11 and no allrounders
It’s not a waste of money because Avesh Khan is a pretty decent upgrade on all of those domestic bowlers. Not many of those domestics would get into other teams on a consistent basis, so it’s reasonable to think that RR were cognizant of that and wanted to upgrade their domestic pacers.
Moving on, while this trade got plenty of attention, it was nothing compared to the social media drama following the ultra-strong rumours of Hardik Pandya returning to Mumbai Indians from Gujarat Titans. Here was my initial take on the matter:-
A little more news has come out since my tweet, focusing on a potential fee which MI may be paying GT for recruiting Hardik, but I still feel that this deal is really not a good one for GT moving forward. Certainly if I was involved in the ownership/management structure there, I wouldn’t be advocating accepting the rumoured deal.
Here are some thoughts and questions which I currently have.
GT owners bought the team for $700m (around £550m) two years ago. Even if they got rumoured 15-25 Cr for him (around £1.5-£2.5m) this transfer fee is an utter pittance compared to their purchase price for the team. A comparatively valued football team would never sell their star asset for that price.
Why would GT allow a player to join a major rival team and make them stronger? From a sporting perspective, it makes no sense. There are plenty of examples of football teams (a much more evolved industry for player trading) attaching a premium price for such scenarios, or even not dealing with major rivals full-stop.
How much will MI pay GT as a ‘transfer fee’? Do GT get the extra money in auction & do MI get less? At the moment, this seems like a very vague discussion with no certainty to the answer. The answer is important, because it has the potential to make GT’s decision make more sense if they got considerable additional money to play with at auction while MI were hugely constrained.
If this doesn’t happen, the deal makes such little sense from a sporting perspective. How much would Hardik go for in mini auction - 20+ Cr? It would have the potential to break all records, particularly considering every other franchise would be aware that MI really wanted him and accordingly inflated his price by fighting them in the auction.
Does this put MI in a situation where they are a team of galacticos with several cheap players in their team making up the numbers? Here’s a list of their highest-paid players if Hardik joins them.
Clearly they can’t pay this much for eight players, so there are likely going to be some releases. Cameron Green could well be one. The injured Archer could be another.
Questions:-
It’s a ridiculous move but the only logic I see of trading him versus putting him in the auction is the transfer fee that GT are going to earn. Might be substantial!
Rumours are of 15-25 Cr for a transfer fee. In my view for the deal to make sense, they would need to add a zero to rumoured figures.
What if Hardik might want to choose where he wants to go?
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2 things sir hardik will get more money on future in mi itself sir and along with captaincy sir next he had good working environment in mi
Both of these points may well be true but neither are GT’s problem. The entire point of the auction dynamic is that players don’t get to choose where they go, unlike in football where both clubs and the player have to all agree on the move.
They should done trade for kishan (they need a keeper batter )+ 1 other young player like wadhera or brevis
Trading for Kishan makes little sense to me. It’s doing MI a favour after they overpaid for him at auction. When I was working on the 2022 mega auction planning, it became very obvious that in the likely scenario of MI paying decent money for Ishan Kishan that they were going to have to severely compromise their bowling strength. This still is potentially their major weakness, even if they do recruit Hardik.
Finally, the last confirmed trade is Shahbaz Ahmed to SRH and Mayank Dagar to RCB. A much lower-profile piece of player movement.
I’m not particularly enthused by Shahbaz in general, and basically view him as a below-average batter and a below-average bowler. His IPL career numbers would back up that assertion. So I don’t see any logic which benefits SRH here.
Dagar is a worse batter but likely a better bowler. I’d rather have a player who has the potential to be at least as good as the average player in their main skillset, and I think he represents this description more than Shahbaz. So, given this and the fact Dagar is several years younger as well, I think RCB are the winners with this trade.