Last year's Harshal Patel emerged as the bowling sensation in the IPL where he grabbed everyone's eyeballs with his splendid show with the ball for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). But RCB didn't retain him ahead of the IPL mega auction which came as a surprise for everyone. After all, last year, Harshal was the leading wicket-taker of the season, grabbing 32 of them and tied the record for the most wickets in a single edition of the IPL.
Harshal revealed a conversation with RCB and explained the reason why he was not retained by the Bangalore-based franchise ahead of the IPL mega auction.
In IPL 2022 auction, when Harshal's name came up, there was no way RCB were going to let him go. It was obvious that an intense bidding war was about to unfold. And that’s exactly what happened. RCB and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were at it from the word go, and from a base price of INR 2 crore, it was up to INR 8 crore in no time. It multiplied even further and at INR 10.75 crore, Harshal was finally snapped up by RCB, becoming the franchise’s joint-costliest buy of the day along with Sri Lankan spinner Wanindu Hasaranga.
“They basically told me that if we retain you, we’ll have to pay you 6 crore and 9 crores will be deducted out of our purse because you will be the fourth player. So we don’t want to do that and we’d rather that you earn that money in the auction and we’ll try our best to get you back. So that was the only communication,” Harshal said.
He admitted that the franchise bought him for a huge price tag in the mega auction but the amount of faith they showed in him means a lot to him.
"When they traded me back from Delhi, they gave me an opportunity and responsibility that I was not expecting to fulfill. They backed me, saw something in me and that means a lot. The price tag is obviously huge but at the same time, the amount of faith they've shown in me means a lot," Harshal added.
Apart from Harshal Patel, RCB roped in Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga for INR 10.75 crores along with Faf du Plessis for INR 7 crores.
Players picked by RCB in IPL mega auction:
Faf du Plessis – Rs 7 Crore
Harshal Patel – Rs 10.75 Crore
Wanindu Hasaranga – Rs 10.75 Crore
Dinesh Karthik -Rs 5.50 Crore
Josh Hazlewood – Rs 7.75 Crore
Shahbaz Ahmed Rs 2.4 Crore
Anuj Rawat – Rs 3.4 Crore
Akashdeep – Rs 20 Lakh
Mahipal Lomror- Rs 95 lakh
Finn Allen- Rs 80 lakh
Sherfane Rutherford- Rs 1 crore
Jason Behrendorff- Rs 75 lakh
Suyash Prabhudessai- Rs 30 lakh
Chama Milind- Rs 25 lakh
David Willey- Rs 2 crore
Aneeshwar Gautam- Rs 20 lakh
Karn Sharma- Rs 50 lakh
Siddharth Kaul- Rs 75 lakh
Luvnith Sisodia- Rs 20 lakh
