Rajasthan Royals shell out a whopping Rs 11.5 crore for Jaydev Unadkat

NEW DELHI: One of the most skilled Indian fast bowlers when it comes to Twenty20 cricket, Jaydev Unadkat became the costliest Indian player so far at Rs 11.5 crore at the IPL 2018 Auction, surpassing the Rs 11 crore price tag fetched by KL Rahul (KXIP) and Manish Pandey (SRH) the previous day.
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Rajasthan Royals broke the bank for the 26-year-old on day two after bagging Ben Stokes for Rs 12.5 crore on day one.
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Unadkat, who was named the Man of the Series in the 3-0 T20I sweep of Sri Lanka last year, was considered to be a prime commodity at the auction and the rightly so, as Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings engaged in a bidding war for the Saurashtra bowler only to be see Rajasthan come in at the last stage with a hefty price.
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During the last IPL, Unadkat had finished second on the bowling table with 24 wickets in 12 games for Rising Pune Supergiants, striking every 11.4 deliveries while conceding runs at 7.02 per over.
The 26-year-old spearheaded Pune's bowling with several key performances including two Man-of-the-Match showings - a career-best 5/30 highlighted by a hat-trick in a maiden last over versus Sunrisers Hyderabad, and 2/12 to go with a direct hit run-out and fine diving catch as Pune clinched second spot and knocked out Kings XI Punjab.
In the capped bowlers bracket, Punjab’s Sandeep Sharma was picked for Rs 3 crore by Sunrisers Hyderabad while young guns Mohammad Siraj (Rs 2.6 crore) and Shardul Thakur (Rs 2.6 crore) went to Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings, respectively.
India discard Mohit Sharma also fetched a high price of Rs 2.4 crore and went back to Kings XI Punjab via Right to Match card. Nathan Coulter-Nile was a bargain buy at Rs. 2.2 crore for RCB.
In the allrounders’ bracket, Washington Sundar was picked by RCB for Rs 3.2 crore while the likes of Corey Anderson, Moises Henriques and Rishi Dhawan went unsold. Australian allrounder Ben Cutting went to Mumbai Indians at Rs 2.2 crore while Dan Christian was taken by Delhi Daredevils for Rs 1.5 crore.