The IPL 2025 mega auction has come to an end. The 10 franchises signed a total of 182 players by spending Rs 639.15 Crore over two days.
Rishabh Pant (Rs 27 Crore to LSG), Shreyas Iyer (Rs 26.75 Crore to PBKS) and Venkatesh Iyer (Rs 23.75 Crore to KKR) were the three most expensive buys, while Prithvi Shaw, Shardul Thakur among others failed to find a bid.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the youngest ever to go under the IPL auction hammer, became a millionaire as the 13-year-old secured a deal with the Rajasthan Royals for Rs 1.10 Crore.
Shaw and Thakur going unsold became the talk of the town, and former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting also spoke about them after the auction.
Ponting, currently part of the Punjab Kings coaching set-up, alluded at the famous saying of how the “game catches up with you” if you don’t respect it.
The former Delhi Capitals head coach felt bad for Shaw, whom he referred as the best talent he had ever worked with.
“Sad. You know, Prithvi, I still say now he is as talented a player as I probably ever worked with. He goes unsold in the auction and then doesn’t even come back in the accelerator. And there are a lot of teams here that are looking at him. He’s not playing. But as I said, the game catches up with you. So, yeah, I guess that. Yeah, that’s about all you can say,” Ponting said, as quoted by Cricbuzz.
"When you look at something like that, it's actually quite sad that he's not...," he remarked.
Prithvi Shaw announced his arrival to international cricket with a century on Test debut. However, the 25-year-old struggled to maintain his form and also went downhill fitness-wise.
As a result, the Mumbaikar fell behind in the packing order and he is currently not in the reckoning for India selection. The last time he played for the country was in July 2021.
Things turned so ugly for Shaw that he found himself out of DC’s playing XI in the IPL 2024 season and was recently left out of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad.
During his coaching stint with DC, Ponting had also worked with Shardul Thakur. The Australian legend recalled an instance how they planned for the Mumbai all-rounder.
"So, you know, Shardul, only a couple of years ago, I think we paid about INR 10 crores for him in an auction. And now he's not. Now he's unsold," he mentioned.
