True, but they still overpaid. I find it weird that they decided to shell out so much for him to be honest. Players like Warner were bought for less than half of that amount which seriously blows my mind.
Also, I was stunned to see Smith go unsold while Kohli was retained by his franchise. Players like Stokes etc would probably go unsold too if they participated in this season.
Majority of Players in the Marquee list got bad deals, except Shreyas Iyer but he's up for captaincy slot so his price tag make sense. Warner and Quinton De Kock were the main victims, historically every franchise avoid bidding war during first round (Marquee auction), same thing happened yesterday. These 2 batters could have fetch 8-9 crore easily but its a bad luck that they were up for grab at the very start. It happened to so many players in the past as well Rohit, Bumrah comes to my mind when they were sold to Mumbai less than million bucks. Having said that I'm sure if Warner and De Kock perform well in upcoming season then they are going to get extra money -under the table deal-.
I really think that Indian players are more prioritized here in the IPL auction and every other overseas player are kept as the second option.
And it doesn't matter who the player is most of the time. I really think that this is a good strategy by BCCI or anyone who ever thought this for the first time because in this way more and more Indian players are going to come to focus.
This happens in every mega auction, mini auction are completely different and tons of foreign players gets the priority. Each franchise have to fill complete squad with at least 17 Indian players (including uncapped +u19) and 8 foreign players.
This season every team had to build their team from the scratch so it was obvious that they would bank on Indian players more because of their availability, why would you waste million bucks on foreign players when they are not even available for full season because of their commitment in international cricket
Another perspective is that some foreign players leave their respective teams after one season and go home with shitload amount of money, if player is big then this completely ruins the team combination because teams are build around such players. You can't even blame the players because some want to spend time with their families, play cricket for their own country etc
ATM demand is for finisher(all rounder) and fast bowlers. India is kinda lacking in this department as far as domestic resources are concern and they don't have 25-30 quality allrounders/pacers to fill the all 10 teams. In Batting and spin department supply is very healthy that's why likes of Eoin Morgan, Finch(they were never good in IPL anyway), Mujeeb etc went unsold.