Over the years, the Indan Premier League has become one of the most popular and loved cricket tournaments in the world. It has become a permanent fixture in the cricket calendar. Every year, fans wait for these three months – Mach, April, and May, to watch their favorite cricketers play against each other.
Players around the world are always eager to participate in the cash-rich league, however, there have been players who had to skip the tournament even after they were bought in by the franchises because of various reasons.
Here, we bring you a list of 5 cricketers who pulled out of IPL after auctions, have a look:
5. Josh Hazlewood:
Recently, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have availed the services of Josh Hazlewood at his base price of INR 2 Crore. However, this isn’t the first time when he has been picked by any IPL franchise. He was picked in the IPL auctions for the first time in 2014.
He was bought by the Mumbai Indians franchise for his base price of INR 50 lakhs in the 2014 auctions. He didn’t play a single game in that edition. He was also retained in the following season for the 2015 season. However, he pulled out in the edition of the IPL in order to remain fit and fresh.
4. Mitchell Starc:
Mitchell Starc has played only two seasons in the IPL. It was in the year 2014 when the left-arm pacer was picked by the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for INR 5 crore. He was the key player for RCB as he picked 34 wickets in 27 games he played at an average of 20.38. However, he was injured and was left out by RCB before the 2017 auctions.
In 2018, he was one of the most talked-about players and was bought at a whopping rate of INR 9.4 crores. However, he pulled out of the IPL a couple of weeks before it started as he suffered from tibial bone stress in his right leg during the Test series in South Africa.
3. Pat Cummins:
Pat Cummins impressed one an all with his performances in two seasons for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). In 2017, he was bought by Delhi Daredevils for a whopping INR 4.5 crore. During that season, he picked 15 wickets in 12 games that he played. Besides this, he played with the strike-rate of 145.28 with the bat. Later, he was bought in by Mumbai Indians for INR 5.4 crores, but he had to skip the 2018 edition of IPL because of an injury.
2. David Willey:
One of the most underrated cricketers in the shortest format of the game, David Willey has amazing bowling skills. It was in the year 2018 when he was bought by Chennai Super King as a replacement for Kedar Jadhav, who was ruled out because of a hamstring injury.
During that season, he played 3 games, where he picked 2 wickets in 10 overs he bowled. He was retained by CSK for the season. However, he had to pull out of that season because of family reasons. He was quoted saying:
“Unfortunately, due to family reasons, I’ve had to pull out of the IPL. Chennai were very understanding and supportive as Yorkshire have been as well,”
1. Chris Woakes:
Chris Woakes became the latest player to skip the season of IPL. Chris Woakes was bought by Delhi Capitals at his base price of INR 1.5 crores. He had earlier represented Kolkata Knight Riders in 2017 and Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2018.
Though he gave a memorable performance while playing for KKR, as he picked 17 wickets, on the other hand, he turned out to be pretty expensive for RCB. Recently, he has decided to skip the IPL 2020 in order to keep himself fit and fresh for the upcoming international challenges.
