Legendary England pacer James Anderson, who retired from international cricket earlier this year, has registered for the IPL 2025 mega auction, slated be held in Jeddah for over two days on November 24 and 25.
The 42-year-old has thrown his hat into auction ring at a base price of INR 1.25 crore, and it will be interesting to see if he manages to attract any franchise or not.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, South African great AB de Villiers drew a similarity between Anderson and former India skipper MS Dhoni, who continues to play in the IPL for Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
According to De Villiers, the base price set by Anderson for himself is like a "pay cut", something that Dhoni also took ahead of the upcoming season.
Notably, Dhoni's IPL salary was reduced from INR 15 crore to Rs 12 crore ahead of IPL 2022 while CSK used the uncapped player rule to retain his services for INR 4 crore.
"It almost gives me a same kind of feeling with MS Dhoni that he decided to take a pay cut. Yes Jimmy, Rs 1.25 crores as a base price, which is not a lot for the status this guy has got. Maybe he will go for only 1.25 and still be prepared to go to India, leave his family for almost three months and maybe not even play a game and share a dressing room with some of the young Indian fast bowlers," De Villiers said.
"I think it's fantastic and I was one of the franchise owners and I could get Jimmy for INR 2-3 crores. I would take him purely because I believe that there's a lot of experience that can be shared with some of the young players, and just his aura and the dressing room will give the bowling unit confident. This guy knows his game inside out," he added.
James Anderson played his farewell Test against the West Indies at Lord’s in July 2024, finishing with 704 scalps from 188 matches at an average of 26.45.
Anderson ended his Test career as the third-highest wicket-taker after Muthiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708). He is the highest wicket-taker amongst seamers in the purest format of the game.
Anderson has never participated in the IPL and his last T20 appearance was more than 10 years ago when he played in the Natwest T20 Blast match between Lancashire and Warwickshire.
"He is 42 years old and might not be able to execute as well on the park anymore, but he still knows exactly what's required to win games of cricket with the ball in hand. What I think is I hope someone picks him up purely from an experience point of view almost having like a bowling captain in the change room where he plays a lot of games or not, it doesn't really matter," De Villiers remarked.
