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So taking off from where we left off in Part-I of my attempt to analyse the business of the 8 IPL franchises at the auction on 19th December and which players in my view were the smart picks for their franchises. Please do read it and bouquets and brickbats are always welcome. Mumbai Indians: - The defending champions Mumbai Indians were very active during the trading window and filled a few gaps in their squad by acquiring the New Zealand left-arm pacer Trent Boult and West Indies all-rounder Sherfane Rutherford , both from the Delhi Capitals and also getting back local boy, the right-arm pacer Dhawal Kulkarni from the Rajasthan Royals, while letting go of Mayank Markande to the Delhi Capitals and also the batsman Siddhesh Lad to the Kolkata Knight Riders. Before the auctions, they did make some big-ticket releases such as that of recently-retired batsman Yuvraj Singh , West Indies opener Evin Lewis and Australian all-rounder Ben Cutting amongst the major names. With ...

The 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a humdinger to the last ball of the tournament, which saw the Mumbai Indians wrest back their crown from their arch-nemesis and defending champions, the Chennai Super Kings by a margin of just 1 run. The year ended with the player auctions for the 2020 season on Thursday, 19 th December, 2019, which was the last one before the grand auction for the 2021 edition. So, without further ado, I would attempt to evaluate as to how the 8 sides performed on the auction table, as they attempted to go in for some of the biggest names today in world cricket and the “flavour-of-the-season” players. This would be a two-part article, with Part II coming soon. Chennai Super Kings: - The runners-up from the previous edition came into this auction with a very settled and experienced squad and having the slot to buy a maximum of 5 players (having released 6 players from their previous squad which included the likes of David Willey and Sam B...