Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra believes that Mayank Agarwal may not attract a considerable bidding war like some other stars. This is because he feels most teams have a settled top order. Agarwal was the captain of Punjab last year but he had a terrible time with the bat in the Indian T20 League 2022. The team finished sixth on the table and they decided to release the Karnataka batter from the team.
Agarwal will enter the auction with a base price of two crores. Many fans and experts believe that he could go for a pretty high price due to his attacking batting as well as his leadership ability. However, Aakash has some different thoughts about the opener.
“Indian batters will most probably go for pretty cheap, probably even at base price, with Mayank Agarwal as an exception. I am not expecting teams bidding in crores to get Indian batters. Even Mayank may not cross double digits in crores in the auction. This is because most teams have their openers sorted.” Aakash was quoted as saying.
‘I expect Mayank to go for…’- Aakash Chopra
Aakash also said that last year’s Champions Gujarat and Hyderabad could be in the race for Mayank Agarwal in the upcoming 2023 auction. He also said that the only thing that could work against the Karnataka batter is that most teams don’t need an opener or top-order batter at the moment but Gujarat could be interested in pairing him with Shubman Gill up the order.
“Sunrisers and Gujarat should logically engage in a bidding war for Mayank. Logically, Sunrisers should win it, given their purse. But anything can happen in the auction.”
“Sunrisers once again will be in contention due to the massive purse that they have. I don’t see any quality batters there apart from Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, and Aiden Markram. They already have the bowling so they need to stack up their batting. Unless there’s a case where no bidding war happens, I expect Mayank to go for 8-10 crore in the auction,” said Chopra.
