PCL 2023/24 Mega Auction report

The Palladian Cricket League Mega auction for 2023 turned out to be a bigger event than we had ever planned. With 36 avid cricketers on the radar of the 2 teams, everyone’s expectations were sky high.

Some firsts for the auction:

·       Live in person auction with live views on auction buys and wallet remaining. Kiran owned this.

·       Expert auctioneer in Susmit running the auction smoothly

·       The next gen being part of the auction process

·       The player reveal which was superbly done by Satya

·       Food sponsorship for the event by Licious, courtesy Piyush. F&B coordinated by Kishore.

·       Clubhouse availability and management, thanks to Uma and the MC.

 

Auction event:

With our wonderful precedent for not starting anything on time, it was a pleasant surprise that we started the auction only with a delay of 15 minutes. The first person on the auction list was Ahaan who went to the Vikings. Thereafter, the auction picked up pace and what was really interesting to see was how prepared the two team owners/captains were, ably assisted by their advisors Shiten and Hari who interestingly did not go to the teams they were advising. Did someone say, collusion?

 

HK and Aashish had a clear game plan on which players they wanted and the ones they were ready to splurge on. Team Vikings made a quick start by building a strong base and having enough money to spend later in the auction whereas Team Infernos were being calculative and picky.

The considerations for the picks were very strategic – availability of players, recent form, skills beyond cricket itself and match ups. There was some extremely good value buys during the auction and as the season progresses it will be interesting to see the ROI on some of the more expensive buys.

In the end, Team Infernos invested every rupee of the pre-auction pool and Team Vikings ended up with 55 lakhs remaining unspent. Excellent job by both teams.

 

How the teams stack up?

 

On the face of it, Team Vikings made the smarter purchases. They spent a total of INR 9.45 Cr and now have a team base of 20 players. That is an average spend of INR 47.25 Lakhs per player. The team composition is very balanced.

Retained players – Aashish, Anshul, Harsha, Sameer, CP, Anand, Kings, Mark and Ahaan

New buys – Uma, Manoj, Bipin, Pranshul, Hari, Raghu, Vicky, Susmit, Vikram and Gopi

 

The team is well served by 8 all rounders and a strong core batting group. The bowling is pace heavy and the spin department will be led by Raghu unless Aashish also continues to bowl spin. They also have an excellent fielding unit with almost every spot accounted for. Anand will be their primary WK with the talismanic Hari also in the team.

 

Probable starting XI (availability) : Aashish, Sameer, Kings, CP, Raghu, Gopi, Vikram, Vicky, Susmit, Manoj and Ahaan

 

Team Infernos started slow but ended up with a team base of 18 players. They spent their overall pot of INR 10 crores with the final pick of the day which was Kiran. That is average spend of INR 55.55 lakhs per player. Did someone say spin has a role to play at the maidaan?

 

Retained players – HK, Satya, Kishore, Anantha, Raj, KG, Aditya, Pranav and Vedant

New buys – AK, Sarat, Samir, Kiran, Shiten, Piyush, Arjun, Chaitanya and Ayush

 

The team clearly has variety when it comes to its bowling attack with a plethora of spin options, left arm pace and the wily wicket taking ability of Satya. The batting could be a weak spot as the team has a few irregulars in the squad. Fielding is well balanced though the inner ring could prove to be a problem. Wicketkeeping options are well covered for in AK and Samir.

 

Probable starting XI (availability) : HK, AK, Samir, Shiten, Kishore, Kiran, Arjun, Piyush, Satya, Chaitanya and Ayush

 

Last words:

“I am very happy with my team. Going into the auction, the focus was on leg spinners. The fact that I got all four leg spinners is a great win for us. Also, getting a few marquee players on budget helped us stacking a team with some great batting as well. “ – HK, Infernos Captain

 

“We have some fantastic options in our squad. With a deep bench strength, we will hope to put up a strong team every weekend. A few of the new players in our team are raring to go. The Vikings know how to win and we will continue to focus on that with this team.” – Aashish, Vikings Captain