The players’ auction for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 is ready to take place on February 12 and 13 at Hotel ITC Gardenia in Bengaluru. Notably, it is the fifteenth IPL auction and the fifth mega-auction, with the last one, occurred in 2018.
As many as 590 players (370 Indian and 220 overseas) are part of the bidding process. Ahead of the auction, 30 players were retained by the eight existing franchises, while the two new teams – Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans – roped in three players each.
It would be interesting to see how many players amongst 229 capped, 354 uncapped, and seven from the Associate teams would fetch a big deal in the auction. Many experts have already revealed their picks in different categories. Following the pattern, senior Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has also made a huge prediction regarding an uncapped Indian player, who can trigger a bidding war.
Ashwin named fast bowler Avesh Khan as his choice and felt that franchises would fight it out to get the Madhya Pradesh pacer in the squad. Avesh, who made his IPL debut in 2017, grabbed the limelight in the 2021 season with consistent performances for Delhi Capitals (DC).
The right-arm pacer played 16 matches for the Capitals and took 24 wickets at an economy rate of 7.37. Despite showing utmost consistency, Avesh was released by DC ahead of the mega-auction.
“There is definitely going to be a bidding war for Avesh Khan. No doubt about that. Guarantee. Just like how Vijay Mallya fought for me with CSK in 2010, I can picture a Parth Jindal or a Kiran Rao fighting it out for Avesh Khan this year. With whom will they fight? Well, that might be any team,” said Ashwin on his YouTube channel.
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