“We all were surprised by the price Pooran went for”- Former SRH Coach Tom Moody

Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 mini-auction concluded after a record-breaking bidding day in Kochi, laying the groundwork for what should be another exciting season of T20 cricket. The ten teams purchased 80 players after spending a total of Rs 164.5 crore at the Kochi mini-auction.

Former West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran was the sixth-highest buy in an IPL auction, the highest value for a West Indies player so far.

However, former India player Dodda Ganesh had questioned Puran’s valuation. Als, Wasim Jaffer, a former Indian player and current cricket specialist, had expressed a similar opinion. There he mentioned that Lucknow Supergiants paid more money than Pooran.

Sunrisers Hyderabad bought him for the 2022 season and released him from the team after that season. Accordingly, Pooran was in the 2023 auction pool, and in the auction he was sold to LSG for a whopping USD 1951000..

Former Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody, who worked with former West Indies white-ball captain Puran in the last edition, was surprised by the price Puran fetched at the auction. However, the former Australian played down LSG’s concerns in their midfield.

“We all were surprised by the price Pooran went for. They clearly feel that he’s gonna have a lot of needed power in their middle order, also a left-hander, which is an important point of difference to have in that middle order.”

Nicholas Pooran was sold to Mumbai Indians for the first time in the 2017 IPL auction but never played for them.

Nicholas Pooran was first sold to Mumbai Indians in the 2017 IPL auction but never played for them.

He made his IPL debut for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in the 2019 season. He played 26 matches for Punjab over three seasons before moving to SRH in 2022.

LSG will be the West Indies gloveman’s fourth franchise. South Africa’s Quinton de Kock is in the squad, so he may not taking wickets. That being said, Nicholas Pooran is also quite good as an off-spinner.

The former West Indies captain has scored 912 runs in 44 IPL innings at a strike rate of 151.24. He scored 306 runs in 13 innings for SRH in IPL 2022.