Chennai: IPL's perennial under-performer Glenn Maxwell once again fetched big money at the player's auction as Royal Challengers Bangalore bidding a whopping Rs 14.25 crore to secure his services here on Friday.
However, the tag of the most expensive buy in the IPL history has gone to South Africa all-rounder Chris Morris. Rajasthan Royals secured Morris' expertise at Rs 16.25 crore. Morris has played 70 matches in IPL and took 80 wickets and scored 551 runs. Last season he played for Delhi Capitals.
Morris has broken the previous record of Yuvraj Singh who was bought for Rs 16 crore by Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) in 2015 IPL auction.
Kolkata Knight Riders secure the service of Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan. The Kolkata franchise spent Rs 3.2 crore for the all-rounder.
England all-rounder Moeen Ali also went for a high price of Rs 7 crore to Chennai Super Kings. Both Maxwell and Moeen had base prices of Rs 2 crore.
However, Australian Steve Smith, who was released by Rajasthan Royals at the end of IPL 2020, was bought by Delhi Capitals for Rs 2.20 crore which was only Rs 20 lakh more than his base price.
KKR made the opening bid for Maxwell, but it eventually became a two-way bidding war between Chennai Super Kings and RCB before the Virat Kohli-led team won him with a bid which came to USD 1.96 million.
Also Read: IPL 2021 Auction: How much money can each team spend?
Punjab Kings, who had paid Rs 10.75 crore for Maxwell in the previous auction, had released the 32-year-old following the 2020 edition in which he made 108 runs in 13 games at 15.42.
In 82 IPL games, Maxwell has made 1505 runs at a modest average of 22.13.
In the first hour of the auction, the players who went unsold were Karun Nair, Alex Hales, Jason Roy, Kedar Jadhav and Aaron Finch among others.
