Big pay day for Shepherd, 14 West Indians secure contracts at IPL Auction

Berbician Romario Shepherd had a memorable day on the second day of the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction when he was snapped up by Sunrisers Hyderabad for 7.75 crore, which is equivalent to US$1,030,750.

Chennai Super Kings, Lucknow Super Giants, Mumbai Indians, and Rajasthan Royals all engaged in a bidding war for the 27-year-old Shepherd, but Sunrisers Hyderabad prevailed. Shepherd joined Guyana Amazon Warriors Captain Nicholas Pooran, Jason Holder, and his fellow Berbician, Shimron Hetmyer as million-dollar men at this year’s auction.

Meanwhile, Sherfane Rutherford was snapped by Royal Challengers Bangalore. The left-handed Guyanese batsman was sold for his base price of 1 crore, which is approximately US$133,000.
Eight other West Indians were snapped up at the mega auction on day two. Odean Smith, who played for the Guyana Amazon Warriors, also secured a good price from Punjab Kings at 6 crore (US$798,000). Dominic Drakes went to Gujarat Titans (1.1 crore – US$146,000); Kyle Mayers Lucknow Super Giants (50 lakh – US$66,000); Alzarri Joseph Gujarat Titans (2.4 crore – US$319,000); Evin Lewis Lucknow Super Giants (2 crore – US$266,000); Rovman Powell Delhi Capitals (2.8 crore – US$372,000); Obed McCoy Rajasthan Royals (75 lakh – US$99,000) and Fabian Allen Mumbai Indians (75 lakh – US$99,000).

On day one of the auction, Nicholas Pooran became the highest bid for a West Indies player in the IPL auction history when he was signed by Sunrisers Hyderabad for 10.75 crore (US$1,430,000). Jason Holder was snapped up by Lucknow Super Giants for 8.75 crore (US$1,164,000).
Hetmyer, who was the first West Indian buy in the IPL auction, was snapped up by Rajasthan Royals for US$1,132,000. Dwayne Bravo returned to Chennai Super Kings for US$584,000. Hetmyer posted on his social media, moments after the auction news.
Kieron Pollard (US$798,000), Sunil Narine (US$798,000) and Andre Russell (US$1,596,000) were all retained before the auction. With the inclusion of the retained trio, 17 West Indians will be in the 2022 IPL that is tentatively set for April 2.

Below are the full squads:
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Moeen Ali, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo, Robin Uthappa, KM Asif, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana, N Jagadeesan, Hari Nishaanth, Subhranshu Senapati, Mukesh Choudhary, Simarjeet Singh, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Bhagath Varma, Prashant Solanki, Chris Jordan, Dwaine Pretorius, Devon Conway, Adam Milne, and Mitchell Santner.
Delhi Capitals: David Warner, Prithvi Shaw, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, KS Bharat, Mandeep Singh, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya, Khaleel Ahmed, Ashwin Hebbar, Ripal Patel, Yash Dhull, Vicky Ostwal, Lungi Ngidi, Tim Seifert, Praveen Dubey, Rovman Powell, and Lalit Yadav.
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, Jason Roy, Wriddhiman Saha, Abhinav Manohar, Vijay Shankar, Hardik Pandya, Rahul Tewatia, Dominic Drakes, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Jayant Yadav, R Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Alzarri Joseph, Pradeep Sangwan, David Miller, Matthew Wade, Gurkeerat Singh, and B Sai Sudharshan.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer, Sheldon Jackson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy, Sam Billings, Anukul Roy, Rasikh Salam, Abhijeet Tomar, Pratham Singh, Aman Khan, Ramesh Kumar, Ashok Sharma, Tim Southee, Alex Hales, Mohammad Nabi, Umesh Yadav, B Indrajith, and Chamika Karunaratne.
Lucknow Super Giants: KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, Deepak Hooda, Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, Jason Holder, K Gowtham, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Mark Wood, Dushmantha Chameera, Ankit Rajpoot, Shahbaz Nadeem, Manan Vohra, Mohsin Khan, Ayush Badoni, Karan Sharma, Mayank Yadav, Kyle Mayers, K Gowtham, and Evin Lewis.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Dewald Brevis, Kieron Pollard, Jasprit Bumrah, M Ashwin, Basil Thampi, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Sanjay Yadav, Ramandeep Singh, Aryan Juyal, Arjun Tendulkar, Tilak Varma, Hrithik Shokeen, Rahul Buddhi, Arshad Khan, Tymal Mills, Jofra Archer, Fabian Allen, Daniel Sams, Anmolpreet Singh, Tim David, and Riley Meredith.
Punjab Kings: Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Prabhsimran Singh, Odean Smith, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Porel, Sandeep Sharma, Atharva Taide, Vaibhav Arora, Ansh Patel, Raj Angad Bawa, Benny Howell, Rishi Dhawan, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Baltej Singh, Writtick Chatterjee, Nathan Ellis, and Prerak Mankad.
Rajasthan Royals: Devdutt Padikkal, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer, Riyan Parag, R Ashwin, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna, KC Cariappa, Navdeep Saini, Tejas Baroka, Anunay Singh, Kuldeep Sen, Dhruv Jurel, Kuldip Yadav, Shubham Garhwal, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rassie van der Dussen, James Neesham, Daryl Mitchell, Karun Nair, and Obed McCoy.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Shahbaz Ahmed, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Josh Hazlewood, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Suyash Prabhudesai, Luvnith Sisodia, Aneeshwar Gautam, Jason Behrendorff, Karn Sharma, David Willey, Siddarth Kaul, Chama Milind, Mahipal Lomror, Sherfane Rutherford, and Finn Allen.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Kane Williamson, Nicholas Pooran, Aiden Markram, Priyam Garg, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, J Suchith, Shreyas Gopal, Kartik Tyagi, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Saurabh Dubey, Shashank Singh, Sean Abbott, R Samarth, J Suchith, Romario Shepherd, Vishnu Vinod, Glenn Phillips, and Fazalhaq Farooqi.