Australian all-rounder Cameron Green was sold for Rs 17.50 crore to Mumbai Indians in the ongoing IPL auction 2023. Not only is he the second-most expensive player in IPL history, he is also the second-most expensive player of today's auction after Sam Curran.
Curran was bought by Punjab Kings for Rs 18.50 crore, beating the previous all-time IPL record set by Chris Morris at Rs. 16.25 crore, bought by Rajasthan Royals last year.
Speaking on the buy, Akash Ambani, the owner, of Mumbai Indians said, “We have been following Cameron Green for the last three years and with his recent performances, we thought that he is exactly what we needed. We were looking for a younger player and he fits the right age profile for us. If you have noticed, over the last two auctions, we have deliberately picked players that are young and give us more lifetime value and that’s why we thought that Cameron is the perfect guy for us to come in. We are very happy to get Cameron Green.”
Speaking further about the ideology of bidding for young players, Ambani said, “It’s always a mixture, of course we have retained a lot of experienced players with Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah leading those attacks, but I guess it’s also bit of strategy from our perspective to go for younger player who gives us longevity.”
When asked about bidding so far to acquire Cameron Green, Ambani said, “These are auction dynamics for 10 teams. Last three years the highest auction price has been broken, it just shows the demand and the level of excellence the players possess be it a Ben Stokes or Sam Curran or Cameron Green, it shows that the franchises are willing to put money on these players because of the skills they possess.”
Cameron Green is exactly what any franchise, from any given T20 competition, would want to have in their arsenal – an elegant batter who is versatile enough to be flexible to positional changes, a bowler who can do a decent job both with the new ball and at the death, and to top it all off, a gun fielder.
Having made his T20I debut only in April 2022, Green has scored 139 runs including a couple of half-centuries, and has also picked up five wickets.
He also has impressive numbers in other formats, especially ODIs, where his batting average is 58 and bowling average is 29.27.
While the 23-year-old might not have featured in any overseas T20 league year, he has been featuring in Australia’s Big Bash League since the 2018/19 season, where he represents Perth Scorchers.
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