Suresh Raina and Aakash Chopra were unhappy with overseas players getting so much money.
Former Indian cricketers Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel, RP Singh, and Aakash Chopra have expressed their discontent over the salary given to Indian players in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
They believe that Team India stars like Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, Mohammad Shami, and others deserve more money than the overseas players in the IPL after Australian pacers Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins scripted history.
Starc was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KRR) for INR 24.75 crore, while Cummins went to the Sunrisers (SRH) for INR 20.25 crore at the IPL 2024 auction, and they became the two most expensive players in the history of the Indian T20 league.
After the IPL 2024 auction, Chopra, a former Indian batter and commentator, said that Kohli would go for as much as INR 42 crore in the IPL auction if he came in. He also suggested a purse of INR 200 crore in the auction, from which INR 150 crore should be kept for the Indian players.
On his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra said: “It's the Indian Premier League. How is one getting paid so less and the other so much? Loyalty is royalty. If tomorrow, Bumrah tells MI 'Please release me and I'll put my name in the auction'. Or if Kohli says the same to RCB, their prices will rise, right? And that's how it should be? If this auction market decides that Starc's price is ₹25 crore, then it will also decide that Kohli should be worth 42 crore, or Bumrah 35 crore. If that isn't happening, there is a fault.”
"One solution to this is to put a cap on the money kept for overseas players. For example – if you have a purse of ₹200 crore to assemble a team, out of which 1.5 or 1.75 is for Indian players, and the remaining for foreigners. When this happens, it will give you parity, which right now doesn't exist. You can sense disparity at the moment, which is not a good thing. Pretty sure SRH looked at Cummins as a captaincy option. If not, ₹20.50 crore makes no sense. Not for somebody who doesn't have the greatest IPL record. Class player but his T20 numbers are 50-50," he added.
Suresh Raina also agreed with Aakash, as the 2011 World Cup winner was not happy with Starc getting that groundbreaking amount despite not playing in the IPL for 8 years.
Raina signed off by saying, “Jasprit Bumrah for INR 12 crore, MS Dhoni for INR 12 crore, Mohammed Shami for INR 5 crore. And the player who was not a part of the league for 8 years and played just 26 matches was given almost 25 crore. This is not done.”