A total of 333 players will go under the hammer at the IPL 2024 Auction. The IPL 2024 Auction is slated for next Tuesday, December 19, in Dubai; this will be the first time that an IPL auction is being held outside India.
Of these 333 cricketers,119 are overseas players, which includes only two from Associate nations – Netherlands’ Paul van Meekeren and Namibia’s David Wiese. Rest 214 are Indian cricketers.
There are 23 players in the highest bracket of INR 2 crore base price and 13 players with the INR 1 crore base price.
As always, the franchises will have extra focus on all-rounders. There are very few proper all-rounders -those who could get into a team based on either of their characteristics, such as Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja, and are indispensable to their sides – available in the auction since most of them have been retained. Hence, there are a few bowling-allrounders and batting-allrounders to choose from for the franchises.
Here are the top 5 all-rounders in IPL 2024 auction:
Rachin Ravindra
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In the space of one World Cup tournament, Rachin Ravindra has gone from a young prodigy to a highly skillful batting all-rounder who will be sold for big bucks in the IPL 2024 auction. Rachin scored 578 runs at a strike rate of 106 and took 5 wickets in the World Cup and, given his age of only 24, he will be on the radar of multiple franchises.
Pat Cummins
After opting out of the tournament last year due to workload management, Pat Cummins returns to the auction pool. Cummins, who has an experience of 42 IPL matches, has shown his abilities to hit pacers with the bat during his 14-ball half-century against Mumbai Indians in IPL 2022. In the World Cup, it was observed that Cummins has added variations and smarts to his death bowling as well.
Azmatullah Omarzai
Azmatullah Omarzai was perhaps the most impressive of the Afghanistan players in the World Cup. The 23-year-old, who has set his base price at INR 50 lakhs, could eke out a bidding mini-war at the IPL 2024 Auction because he is a proper pace-bowling all-rounder.
In the World Cup, Azmatullah Omarzai was Afghanistan’s highest run-scorer with 353 runs in 8 innings at an average of 70 and a strike rate of 97. He also snapped 7 wickets.
Shardul Thakur
Apart from a half-century against RCB in KKR’s first match last season, Shardul Thakur had a forgettable tournament. However, Thakur has vast experience of winning matches for India and his IPL franchises – he is a 2-time IPL winner with CSK – and has variations to use in death overs; plus, Thakur adds some batting depth. Thakur is likely to go for a handsome amount in the IPL 2024 auction.
David Willey
David Willey’s release by RCB comes as a bit of a surprise. Willey is a wicket-taking new-ball bowler, can hit the hard lengths later in the innings, and is a proven boundary-hitter with the bat. Willey has retired from international cricket to focus more on T20 cricket. He had a good World Cup with England, too.
