At the IPL 2022 auction, Indian players had a field day. Only 67 of the 204 players sold to all 10 franchises in two days were overseas.
Ishan Kishan, Deepak Chahar, and Shreyas Iyer were the three most expensive players sold, to Mumbai Indians for INR 15.25 crores, Chennai Super Kings for INR 14 crore, and Kolkata Knight Riders for INR 12.25 crores respectively.
The next large sum was spent by Punjab Kings on England all-rounder Liam Livingstone for the sum of INR 11.50 crores. Following him, a total of 10.75 crores was spent on four players, two of whom were Indian. Shardul Thakur was acquired by the Delhi Capitals, while Harshal Patel will return to Royal Challengers Bangalore.
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Harshal was a part of India's playing XI for the first T20I against West Indies in Kolkata, and former captain Sunil Gavaskar heaped admiration on the 31-year-old bowler before of the match.
Given how amazingly the pacer has turned a corner, Gavaskar believes the money spent on Harshal by RCB during the IPL 2022 auction was justified.
"Look he deserves every penny, every rupee that he’s earned at the auction. He put in a fabulous performance last year. And the best part about Harshal Patel is how he has reinvented himself. Earlier, he was bowler batters were looking to face because he hardly had any change of pace. He was being taken for a lot of runs. He is learning from it, he has improved from that. Now, he is the bowler that batters do not want to face because they don’t know what he is going to bowl," Gavaskar said to Star Sports.
In IPL 2021, Harshal took 32 wickets for RCB, which is the joint-highest number of wickets by a bowler in a single edition of the Indian Premier League.
As a result, it was only a matter of time until the RCB pursued him. Harshal has significantly improved, according to Gavaskar, and the number of variations he has added to his arsenal makes him a batter's nightmare.
“He has got a very good yorker. He has got a slower bouncer. He has got a delivery that skids along quite nicely so he has got the works and he knows when to use it because of the experience he has had playing in the IPL for the last few years. He has only got better every year,” added Gavaskar.
