Australian star pacer Jason Behrendorff became the first trade of the Indian Premier League 2023 as he re-joined Mumbai Indians (MI) after three years. Rohit Sharma-led MI traded Behrendorff to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) as he remained the unused for the Bangalore-based franchise in IPL 2022 being the preferred pacer. RCB had bought him for Rs 75 lakh in the auction preceding the season. Earlier, the Aussie quick was part of MI squad back in IPL 2018 and 2019.
Behrendorff, who also represented Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2021, has played 9 T20Is picking 7 wickets with a best bowling performance of 4/21.
In 2018 IPL, he played 5 matches and picked as many wickets for Mumbai Indians.
“Australian fast bowler Jason Behrendorff has been traded from Royal Challengers Bangalore to Mumbai Indians for the forthcoming TATA IPL Season 2023. He was acquired by RCB in the 2022 TATA IPL Auction for his base price of INR 75 lakh,” the IPL wrote in a release.
Jasprit Bumrah, Jofra Archer, Riley Meredith and Daniel Sams are some of the other fast bowlers Mumbai currently have in their squad. The most successful team in IPL's history, Mumbai finished tenth in a ten-team tournament in 2022.
The mini-auction for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 is scheduled to be held on December 23 in Kochi.
The total budget per franchise is set to increase from Rs 90 crore to Rs 95 crore. Earlier in February, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) conducted a mega auction for IPL 2022, during which 204 players were bought (out of a maximum possible 217 slots that were open) by the ten franchises.
A total of Rs 551.7 crore was spent to sign up 107 capped and 97 uncapped players. The breakdown of sold players was: 137 Indians and 67 overseas.
