For a player who’s played just 21 IPL games, Delhi boy Pawan Negi’s life will never be the same again.
Then again, having played under MS Dhoni at Chennai Super Kings and also getting picked in the Indian squad for the World T20, Negi’s already getting there. As it transpired, the 23-year-old all-rounder, who plies left-arm, emerged the sensational pick of the auction with home owners Delhi Daredevils rolling out the red carpet for his services at Rs 8.5 cr. Just for good measure, his base price was set at a mere Rs 30 lakh. Talk about going some 28 times that rate!
The theme of every auction is to raise the standards of uncapped players and IPL-9 stayed true to tradition as the lot, young and bursting with talent, were paid big bucks by the franchisees.
If Negi was the chart-buster, former Rajasthan Royals’ Deepak Hooda and Karun Nair also became overnight millionaires. If Sunrisers Hyderabad bought Hooda at Rs 4.2 cr, Daredevils ensured Nair would play for them at a massive Rs 4 crore.
More remarkable was the rise of Nathu Singh, relatively unknown up until a couple of months ago. The 20-year-old son of a labourer has been the whispers in cricket circles over the last few months and was even selected for the Board President’s XI to play against the South Africans.
Surely, he has been ticking off the boxes as Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians furiously bid for the pacer, who’s believed to hit express speeds. Mumbai finally settled the deal for Nathu at Rs 3.2 crore, an absolute windfall for his family who laboured in Jaipur and have stretched every sinew in their body to keep him in cricket. From Rahul Dravid to Gautam Gambhir, people who have seen him have come away mightily impressed. It’s all paying off. Tamil Nadu’s M. Ashwin, 25 a relatively late bloomer, found plenty of confidence in Stephen Fleming of Pune Supergiants as he ended up being the second costliest uncapped player behind Negi, getting to play under Dhoni for a huge Rs 4.5 crore.
Delhi’s Rishabh Pant, who smashed a record half-century in the U-19 World Cup under way in Bangladesh, will join Negi at Daredevils as they paid up Rs 1.9 crore to get him in.
Indeed, IPL is the fantasy land but it’s the uncapped players who seem to uncork the genie in the bottle.
