Why Arjun Tendulkar was picked in the IPL auction but Hanuma Vihari wasn’t!

IPL 2021 edition will start in April 2021 but the atmosphere is already charged up. The IPL auction this year saw new records for the highest price paid for a player and for an overseas player. Many players got great contracts during the IPL while some were not that lucky.

There was yet another class of players who just wanted to be picked at any cost. They just wanted the platform of IPL and not the package at this stage of their career.

As crazy as it may sound, the price of Rs. 16.5 Crores for a player still makes sense to the team that bought him. There is a method to the madness even if we can’t see it as outsiders. So let’s get on to understand why Hanuma Vihari, the savior of India against Australia went unsold whereas a newcomer like Arjun Tendulkar was picked.

And no, it isn’t because of Arjun’s surname. Of course, he has merit. As a matter of fact, it isn’t just Hanuma Vihari, there are other star players like Aaron Finch, Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Adil Rashid, and Marnus Labuschagne, etc who were not picked by any team in the IPL auction this year.

Hence, we are not discussing any controversy here but just attempting to understand the underlying reasons why it made sense for the teams to choose Arjun over all these big guns.

How was the IPL auction different for them?

Reserve Price in IPL Auction

The biggest of the differences is the fact that Arjun Tendulkar’s reserve price (the base price at which a player can be bought by a team) was Rs. 20 Lacs only. On the other hand, the reserve price for Hanuma Vihari was Rs. 1 Crore which made him one of the most expensive players up for the auction.

The Reserve price for Jason Roy was Rs. 2 Crores whereas Aaron Finch, Alex Hales and Adil Rashid had set their reserve price at Rs. 1.5 Crores each. Marnus Labuschagne’s reserve price was Rs. 1 Crore.

It is important to understand that in the IPL auction, each team has a defined budget to buy their players. At the same time, they also have to keep the balance between Indian and overseas players as per the rules. Besides the rules, each team wants to create a balance between batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders.

The reserve price became all the more important this year as the teams went overboard while bidding for a few players. Hence, towards the end of the auction, the teams were struggling to distribute the balance money. Hence, all expensive players became unviable for most of the teams. At this moment, the brightest of the players with low reserve prices were picked by the teams. That is why Arjun Tendulkar also got a chance, just like Yudhvir Charak and Marco Jansen who were also bought at Rs. 20 Lacs only.

Age matters

Another thing that happened towards the end of the auction was that each team had heavily bid for the experienced players and they also had to balance the team with younger players. This was another reason why Arjun Tendulkar (21) was chosen over others like Hanuma Vihari (27), Jason Ray (30), Alex Hales (32) and Aaron Finch (34) etc.

These young players are promising and while they don’t have experience the same point works in their favour as well. Since they haven’t played in international matches most of the players from opposing teams don’t know their style.

The Southpaw all-rounder advantage

Besides the above facts, Arjun is an all-rounder. Arjun Tendulkar is a left-arm bowler and left-handed batsman. Left-arm bowlers have the ability to move the ball away from the batsmen at angles that make them commit mistakes. And as a batsman, he has already shown his appetite and capability to play big shots during Mumbai T20 League 2019.

All other names mentioned above are either batsmen or bowlers. An affordable left-handed all-rounder was definitely the obvious choice over expensive batsmen/bowlers when the auction money was running thin.

Cricket format matters in IPL Auction

Hanuma Vihari and Marnus Labuschagne are primarily test cricket players. They are good players but their forte is test cricket format and hence they aren’t that valuable in IPL. Others are ODI players except for Hales and Finch who have created their own place in the T20 cricket.

Although Arjun Tendulkar hasn’t played any international T20 match but he has shown his prowess in the shortest format of the game during Mumbai T20 League 2019. He has the capability to play big shots and the potential to become a game-changer in IPL.

In the end, it might sound like Arjun’s name has come out in the open for the first time during the IPL 2021 auction, but that’s not his only claim to fame. Arjun has performed well in domestic cricket and was recently chosen to be a part of the under-19 Indian cricket team in January 2021.

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