Punjab Kings bought Sam Curran at the highest price in the history of the IPL auction. They acquired the services of the English player with a whopping amount of Rs. 18.50 crore. The Punjab Kings will chase the IPL curse that says the most expensive player at the auction seldom wins the trophy. Punjab Kings have always spent a huge amount on the auction and it’s possible that the record will be the same in the next season as well.
As mentioned earlier, Punjab Kings have spent the most amount of money on Sam Curran for his spectacular performance in T20 World Cup. They would be expecting Sam Curran to repeat his performance of the World Cup in IPL. However, the IPL curse is too real for any franchise. The expensive players didn’t prove to benefit the franchise as their teams haven’t won a single season of IPL.
In the 2008 auction, MS Dhoni was the most expensive player but CSK lost against Rajasthan Royals in the finale.
In the second season, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pieterson were the costliest players and each of them was bought for Rs. 1.55 million. CSK got eliminated in the finals and Royal Challengers Bangalore that had Pieterson ended up as runners-up in the same year.
Former cricketer Yuvraj Singh was the most expensive buy in 2014 and 2015 in RCB and Delhi Daredevils respectively. Both franchises finished at the 7th spot.
In 2016, Shane Watson was the costliest player but his team RCB lost at the finale. In the next edition, Rising Pune Super Giants bought Ben Stokes as the costliest player and they too lost the finale. In the next player, he went to RCB and the franchise finished in the fourth spot.
From the years 2019 to 2022, five players have been the most expensive buys but none of them could lift the Cup for their teams. Of all these years, only 2013 was an exception.
Interestingly, Curran was the second-highest wicket-keeper in T20 World Cup 2022 with 13 scalps with the best figures of 5/10. He also amassed 1,731 T20I runs in 109 innings at an average of 20.85 and nine half-centuries.
The question is if he’ll be able to continue his magic on IPL 2023 or will the IPL curse take over once again.
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