The upcoming IPL player auction is on everybody’s mind. Cricketers are busy giving interviews, franchises are busy preparing excel-sheets, geeks are busy doling out stats, media is busy building it for the fans & fans are busy lapping it all up. The works!
Let’s take a look at two unique and most important ways a franchise tends to prepare for a player auction. A) Talent scouting; B) Mock auctions. We’ll looking from the perspective of Mumbai Indians. Why? Because on both fronts, they were first to set this trend.
John Wright, Robin Singh, Paras Mhambrey (moved to Team India now), Zaheer Khan, Kiran More, TA Sekar, Parthiv Patel, R Vinay Kumar — a single factor binds all of them. They spend hundreds of hours every year scouring talents across India & abroad, for Mumbai Indians.
Work that MI’s talent-scouting team puts in may not necessarily reflect to the full extent during the season. But that’s because bigger names – bought at auctions by virtue of being proven performers – take centerstage. Talent-scouting is what happens behind the scenes.
Hardik Pandya is a brilliant example. It was the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament in 2013 when Hardik had first caught the MI talent scouting team’s attention. And that too as a bowler. His batting would speak for itself in the rest of the domestic season that followed.
Hardik was a skinny 19-going-on-20, hungry to prove himself, Baroda teenager. Life wasn’t a bed of roses and cricket remained his & Krunal’s only space to vent out the frustrations of financial struggle.
But cricket did bless them. MI marked Hardik to be tried in the near future. “I’ve never questioned life and destiny ever since”, he once told me. Like Hardik, there have been others too. If they haven’t made it to the MI squad yet, it’s because there’s hardly been space.
“And that’s how it should be. You have to be really special if you must make it into the playing XI of a team that’s been five-time champions in 14 years,” say those who track the franchise. They’re absolutely bang on. Behind the scenes though, it’s a different world.
Someone like Wright has spent a great deal of time studying internationally available resources too. This was set-up in 2013, what they called the youth-first policy. It was, once again, Mushtaq Ali where Wright’s eyes fell on Jasprit Bumrah in a Gujarat vs Mumbai game.
Yuzi Chahal, Pawan Suyal, Shreyas Gopal, T Suman, Nitesh Rana, J Suchith, K Gowtham, Jayant Yadav, Axar Patel, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar – they’ve all been associated with the MI camp at some point or other or continue to. I’m sure I’m missing out a lot of names.
Tapping untapped territories was Plan A how MI went about. Plan B was spending money judiciously at the player auction. That’s where mock-auctions came in. What exactly are mock auctions? I’ve personally not been to one, but this is what I’ve gathered speaking to people.
MI divides their own set of experts, scouts, executives, and other staff into eight separate groups (now 10, because two franchises have come in). Each group represents one IPL franchise. Each group’s task? Study the franchise allotted to them, think & bid like them.
Each group will study the franchise allotted & look for trends, player-requirements, salary purse in hand, past records, what’s worked, what hasn’t, player-availability to suit slots, to what extent can they bid, what competition he’s likely to face at the auction.
A mock-auctioneer conducts the process. Just as an example, a Zaheer may only study the RCB set-up. He could arrive at a conclusion that RCB need a captain, two strong openers, two good bowlers more than anything else. Sekar could probably do a similar exercise with SRH.
In the mock auction, they’ll bear in mind how far they can go for a player and stop at what point. Procuring of every talent has an inflection point, beyond which the talent may not be feasible. “At what cost?” is IPL’s biggest question franchises face ahead of auction.
MI owner Akash Ambani participates in the process too. The intensity with which he follows domestic circuits in India & overseas is tremendous. He knows his stats, his cricket, but also has a great team around him as a sounding board. The mock-auction is a regular ritual.
Pursuing a player from a cricketing standpoint is one aspect. The other bit is pursuing trends. Trends keep changing steadily given the way cricket itself is changing with each passing season. Multiutility players keep emerging in various forms. Let’s look at examples below
If Ishan Kishan remains out of MI’s reach, what is their next best option? Quinton de Kock? But do I want to block an overseas option for de Kock and lose out on a quality pacer? What if I want Boult and Jansen? Do I bring Ambati back? He’s back to wicket-keeping.
But de Kock gives me an opening option, and he and Rohit have clicked together. Or do I change this game completely and go all-out for David Warner? I have some of my own options for wicket-keeper that the talent scouting team has looked at. I can build my own star!
Then there are further aspects to look at. Next year, MI wants its jersey sponsorship to go higher than what it already is. The money is important because it can help them invest better in their academy. So, do I invest in a star who’ll attract good sponsor value?
But then, will the star necessarily suit MI’s philosophy? The franchise does a lot but tends to refrain from ‘doing a lot’ too. For instance, there’s no ‘party culture’ in the franchise. Even in the initial years of IPL when after-parties were ‘in’, MI was mostly ‘out’.
Long-term solutions are discussed at mock auctions, not just seasonal benefits. A Parthiv Patel or Vinay Kumar, who’ve retired more recently, bring in a next-gen POV. Cricketing talent can end up getting juxtaposed with the personality a cricketer brings to the table.
Form is temporary, class is permanent.
It wasn’t just Bumrah’s pace that lured MI to him. It was also his ability to put in hard yards, stay disciplined – factors that played imp roles. Today, we look at Bumrah as the ‘ideal’ cricketer, they saw it some years ago.
Scores of excel-sheets are created. If Option A doesn’t work, Option B. If B doesn’t work, C.
Other franchises have picked MI’s work-ethics over the years. But many have either gone on to create different strategies or are still working on one. A strong example is CSK.
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