How RCB lost Sam Curran to Kings XI Punjab in the bidding war
RCB did not want to lose their bid to the Kings XI and increased his price to Rs 7 crore. The team was almost ready to welcome Sam to RCB when the Kings XI bid Rs 7.20 crore.
FollowBengaluru: The IPL auction for 2019 has concluded. All franchisees have put their best efforts to get top performing players in their team. However, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) missed out on a star player for Rs 25 lakh.
RCB tried its best to purchase Sam Curran, an all-rounder, but lost him to the Kings XI Punjab for Rs 25 lakh. Here is what happened:
20-year-old Sam Curran was included for the first time in the IPL auction. His base price was Rs 2 crore, but as his name was called out teams started bidding for him with a much higher price than the base rate. While Delhi and Bengaluru team bid for Sam, his rate increased to Rs 4.80 crore. At this point RCB hesitated to go further and the Delhi Capitals almost bought Sam, when Kings XI came into picture and increased Sam's price up to Rs 6 crore.
RCB did not want to lose their bid to the Kings XI and increased his price to Rs 7 crore. The team was almost ready to welcome Sam to RCB, when the Kings XI bid for Rs 7.20 crore.
With this, RCB kept quiet and Sam became a part of the Kings XI Punjab team. However, if RCB was ready to shell out Rs 25 lakh more, it could have had Sam in its team.
There is no guarantee that the Kings XI Punjab would not have upped their bid even higher, but the difference in the winning bid to the second best made it a nail-biting finish.
Why is Sam important?
Sam is an all-rounder. He has played well overseas. So far, he has played seven tests and has an average run rate of 36 and has 14 wickets to his credit. He has rarely taken part in limited over matches. One needs to wait and watch for Sam's performance in the 2019 IPL matches to know the true worth of the Rs 20 lakh difference.
