At the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 auction in Kochi on Friday, England all-rounder Sam Curran was purchased by Punjab Kings (PBKS) for a record-breaking sum of Rs 18.5 crore, making him the most expensive player in the history of the IPL, surpassing former Sou𓄧th Africa international Chris Morris.
During the bidding process, both Mumbai Indians (MI) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) initially expressed interest in acquiring the services of Curran, who had a base price of Rs 2 crore. As the price rose to Rs 7 crore, Rajasthan Royals (RR) also entered the bidding. RCB eventually dropped out, leaving MI and RR in a competitive bidding war. Chennai Super Kings (CSK), PBKS and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) also entered the bidding before Punjab ultimately bought Curran. The left-hander last month won the ‘Player of the Tournament’ award at the T20 World Cup in Australia, where he took 13 wickets and earned the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his performance in the final against Pakistan.
“Very happy to have him on board, he has a lot of skills with both bat and ball. We had two or three all-rounders in mind, Sam might be lucky he came up first,” the Punjab head coach Trevor Bayliss was quoted as saying to the broadcasters.
Here’s how Twitter reacted:
Record Alert 🚨
Sam Curran 𝙗��𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨ཧ𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙄𝙋𝙇!
He goes BIG 🤯- INR 18.50 C𓄧rore & will now play for Punjab Kཧings 👏 👏 |
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL)
Sam Curran after the IPL bidding:
— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns)
BREAKING: Sam Curran becomes most expensive player in IPL auction history… £1.84 million.
Merry Christmas !🔥🔥🔥— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan)
The dynamics of small auctions have worked🌳 spectacularly for . Wish him well with that price tag.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha)
Record broken, R🎐aining currencies in Sam Curran’s garden..deservedly so..
— S.Badrinath (@s_badrinath)
Tough luck, well played! Go well, Sam!
— Chennai Super Kings (@ChennaiIPL)
Left is right
— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan)
Sam Curran right now!! 🤑🤑🤑
— Alexandra Hartley (@AlexHartley93)
18.50 Cr for Sam Curran
— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals)
SAM-SATIONAL BUY! ❤️, run out of adjectives for C꧒urran꧙ in the comments. 👇🥳
— Punjab Kings (@PunjabKingsIPL)
Sam Cur💫ran becomes the most expensive player in IPL history🌌 at £1.95million 🤯
Merry Christmas 🎄
— England's Barmy Army 🏴🎺 (@TheBarmyArmy)