Former Indian Test captain Anil Kumble believes the likes of Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah will feel hard done by after seeing Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins hit the roof in IPL 2024 auction. Kumble admitted that he thought that the 20 crore barrier will never be broken in the IPL auction history.
Cummins and Starc proved to be the biggest beneficiaries of the IPL auction 2024 as the franchises shelled out well over โน40 crore on the Aussie pacers. Cummins broke Sam Curran's record by fetching โน20.25 crore from the SunRisers Hyderabad to become the costliest player in the auction history, but Starc broke it in less than an hour by yielding โน24.75 crore from the Kolkata Knight Riders.
With Bumrah and Kohli earning a shade less than 20 crore, Kumble feels the domestic cricketers are of high quality already and that Starc and Cummins didn't deserve that high a price.
"To go for โน45 crore on Starc and Cummins at an auction like this - yes this was unprecedented and we never thought that the 20 crore barrier will be broken - but I certainly believe that since only four players can play in the Playing XI and you have 8 out of the 25, I think it's only fair that you have a 40 or 45 percent salary of the overall cap for overseas guys. You have really high-quality Indian players. Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, who will be looking at this and thinking what's going on."
Anil Kumble suggests separate purse for the overseas players:
Speaking further on the issue, Kumble hinted that overseas players are using the mini-auction loophole to significant effect. He added that such exorbitantly high prices for Cummins and Starc could prove to backfire, given the inexperience and mediocre record.
That's where I think you seriously need to look at a seperate purse for the overseas because otherwise, you will have players not coming into the big auction, especially the foreign players who are in demand. They will choose the smaller auction where you know that you're going to go for a double-digit or even more and today was a classic example.
"Yes, those two are exceptional players but Starc hasn't played in the IPL since 2015. He isn't the youngest of the lot, and Pat Cummins doesn't have a great T20 record as a bowler. He is the captain of Australia, he's done exceptionally for them."
IPL 2024 is likely to start on March 22nd.
