The Indian Premier League action is likely to be held in December this year. The franchises will be keeping a close eye on the ongoing action in the 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia. The franchises will have to inform the BCCI of the players they intend to release by November 15. The IPL 2023 is tentatively slated to start in the third week of March and will run till May-end or early June.
Here are the three overseas players who could start a bidding war at this year’s auction.
Sam Curran
Sam Curran is proving himself as England’s key man at the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia. Curran had missed out on last year’s World Cup in the UAE with a lower-back injury and became a commentator. In the 2022 edition, against Afghanistan, he became the first English men’s player to take a T20 international five-wicket haul. Curran’s been especially good at the death, picking up seven wickets in three wickets at an economy of less than 5 and an average of just 3.14. Overall he has nine wickets at an economy rate of 6.28. His yorkers, slower deliveries and bouncers make him a valuable asset in Indian conditions. With the bat, his ability to clear the boundary from ball one raises his stakes further.
READ |IPL Auction: Teams to submit list of retained players by November 15
Sikandar Raza
The Zimbabwe all-rounder has lit up this year’s World Cup. In seven matches so far, he’s the fifth-highest wicket-taker with nine scalps, his economy rate of 6.60. Raza’s 3 for 25 was instrumental in Zimbabwe pulling off a stunning one-run win against Pakistan in Perth. In addition, he also has 185 runs at a strike rate of 149.19, the third-highest tally of the tournament at the time of writing this.
Rilee Rossouw
Rilee Rossouw smashed the first hundred of this year’s T20 World Cup as South Africa completed a 104-run win over Bangladesh in Sydney. Rossouw slammed 109 from 56 balls, including eight sixes and seven fours. Rossouw’s score was the fifth-highest in the Men’s T20 World Cup and South Africa’s first hundred. Rossouw did not play for the Proteas between 2016 and July this year after taking a Kolpak deal. But since his return, he has become only the second player to score back-to-back T20I centuries after Gustav McKeon from France. Rossouw’s first T20I hundred came against India in Indore last month.