1. Ishant Sharma
The veteran India pacer has placed himself in the Rs 1.5 crore base price category. But the pacer, who was released by the Delhi Capitals, has been going through a trough of late. He has not been part of India’s white ball scheme of things for sometime now and did not play in South Africa despite being in the Test squad. He played in the first Test against New Zealand at Kanpur but looked way below his best, and there are also injury concerns. With a lot of younger options around, the teams might just look beyond Ishant this time.
2 Piyush Chawla
The former India leg-spinner is one of the most successful bowlers in the IPL. In fact, he is fourth on the all-time wicket-takers’ list with 157 scalps from 165 matches, behind Lasith Malinga, Dwayne Bravo and Amit Mishra. In the IPL 2021, he played just one game for Mumbai Indians, and at 33 he is not getting any younger. There are young spinners coming through from India and abroad, and the teams might just think hard and long before spending Rs 1 crore for Chawla.
3 Ajinkya Rahane
Rahane has listed himself in the Rs 1 crore club after getting released by Delhi Capitals. As far as IPL 2021 is concerned, Rahane played just two matches and scored 8 runs. In IPL 2020, Rahane played 9 matches and made 113 runs at a strike-rate of 105. His place in the India Test team itself is under threat after some lukewarm efforts with the bat recently. His overall record is very reasonable, scoring 3941 runs from 151 matches with a strike-rate of 121 and he has also made 2 IPL hundreds. Imagine he has more IPL 100s than Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, and as many as KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan. But the past record might still be unable to land him a contract, at least in the first round, as the teams will look for a more robust middle-order options from a wider pool.
4 Eoin Morgan
Morgan will go down as one of the finest limited-over players of all time. And also as a great England captain who engineered their white-ball turnaround. He has also showed his sparks for Kolkata Knight Riders in the past, and in IPL 2021 he led them to the final from a position of no-hope. But his efforts with the bat remained sub-par, just 133 runs from 17 matches at a strike rate of 95. For England, too Morgan has not really fired of late and also suffered an injury during the T20I series against the West Indies, missing the last 3 matches. Will a team spent Rs 1.5 crore for Morgan when they have options like Jonny Bairstow? Looks unlikely at this stage.