Sunil Gavaskar, former India captain, admitted to being surprised that Suresh Raina, a legend of the Indian Premier League (IPL), went unsold at the IPL 2022 mega auction in Bengaluru.
Raina, who had a base price of INR 2 crore, went unsold on day 1 of the mega event and was not recalled during the accelerated session of the auction on Sunday, despite being the fourth-highest run-getter in IPL history with 205 appearances and being Chennai Super Kings' leading runs scorer.
Gavaskar told Sports Tak that he thought Amit Mishra, who barely played last season, would go unsold and that Raina should have been selected instead.
“Maybe not so much for Amit Mishra because he hardly got to play any matches last year. And it was clearly evident that his bowling did not have that zip. And also, there is fielding. Being a good fielder is mandatory nowadays because you need to save those singles as well. So that might be the reason behind Mishra not being picked by a franchise.”
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"For Raina, I was definitely surprised. He is left-handed, does off-spin bowling, and is experienced. In the last season, in the Dubai pitches, where there is a lot of bounce, he did look a little scared and this why I feel people must have felt that even in India we will have fast bowlers and so maybe he wasn't picked for that reason. But only the franchises could tell us why they had this feeling about him," he said.
Even though Raina was a consistent performer for Chennai Super Kings, CEO Kasi Viswanath explained that when forming a team, the form of the player and team composition comes into play.
"Raina has been one of the most consistent performers for CSK for the last 12 years. Of course, it was very difficult for us, no to have Raina but at the same time, you should also understand that the team composition depends on the form and kind of which any team would like to have so that’s one of the reasons why we thought he may not fit into this team," he said in a video shared by CSK on their YouTube channel.
