The IPL Mega Auction is growing more and more interesting with every new bid, new player. The first day has seen some big aggressive bids. While some legends like Steve Smith and Suresh Raina went unsold. The 1st list, the marquee list had 10 players. After a short break, the 2nd set of bidding began. Rajasthan Royal has been bidding big, bought Devdutt Padikkal and Shimron Hetmyer for more than 7 crores each. Some important players sold in this round were Jason Holder, Deepak Hooda, Nitish Rana, Dwayne Bravo, Jason Roy. Another big bid was made for Harshal Patel. Check out: Harshal Patel fetches record-breaking 10.75 cr.
Harshal Patel fetches record-breaking 10.75 cr
IPL 2021’s leading wicket-taker, winning the purple cap, was RCB’s Harshal Patel. Since his base price was 2 crores, the bid started at 2cr by Royal Challengers Bangalore. Chennai Super Kings also joined the bidding war. Both the teams showed an intent to have him on their sides. At 4.40 crores, Chennai had withdrawn. However, RCB couldn’t have him right away as SRH joined then. Sunrisers Hyderabad continued to raise the bid till it reached Rs 6.50 cr. After a brief break, the bidding war between RCB and SRH continued. SRH had entered at 4.60 crores and it went up to 10.50 crores. However, RCB showed the intent to have Harshal Patel back at any cost. Thus, SRH had to pull out. Resultantly, Harshal Patel was bought by RCB for 10.75 crores INR.
Almost a decade ago, Harshal had started his IPL career with RCB in 2012. He went to Delhi for a brief period. However, Royal Challengers Bangalore traded him back in 2021. Skipper Virat Kohli had shown great interest in having him back on their side. Which proved to be a great decision for the team. Though the team didn’t win the tournament, they went on to play the eliminator. Harshal Patel not only was the leading wicket-taker of the season. But he also equaled the record of most wickets (32) in an IPL edition, along with Dwayne Bravo. Harshal also picked a 5-wicket haul, last season.
It was his amazing performance that got him his maiden call for Team India, in the T20I series against New Zealand.
