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Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir feels that the franchises missed out on a great deal in Indian Premier League (IPL) auction last month as none of them bid for Sri Lankan skipper Dasun Shanaka. In the ongoing three-T20I series, Shanaka scored the fastest fifty by a Sri Lanka batter to help his side post a daunting total at MCA Stadium, Pune. Gambhir believes that had the T20I series happened before the mini IPL auction, some franchises would not have been able to afford Shanaka as they had a lighter purse.
“I won’t have money, he would be that expensive, the way he has batted. That is what the auction is all about,” Gambhir told Star Sports.
“Imagine if this series had happened just before the auction, some of the franchises would probably not have had the money to buy him.”
Shanaka had a base price of Rs 50 lakh and would have been a budget buy for Punjab Kings (PBKS) who had one overseas slot left with more than Rs 12 crore in the bag at the end of auction. Shanaka is yet to get picked by any franchise in IPL auctions over the years.
Shanaka is by far Sri Lanka's highest run-scorer in T20Is against India. The 31-year-old has scored 407 runs from 19 innings at an average of 31.30 and strike rate of 141.31 including two half-centuries. The middle-order batter is set to surpass Rohit Sharma on the list of most runs by a batter in India vs Sri Lanka T20I encounters. He needs five more runs to dethrone Rohit who has 411 runs from 17 innings.
After the first two T20Is, Shanaka is the highest run-scorer in the series with 101 runs from two innings. He has scored runs at a stupendous strike rate of 206.12.
Batting at no.6 in the second T20I, Shanaka scored 56 runs from just 22 deliveries including two fours and six sixes. His blinder of a knock took Sri Lanka to 206/6. Shanaka then bowled the last over of the match and helped his side win by a comfortable margin of 16 runs despite Axar Patel's record-breaking knock.
