Success doesn’t come easy for teams in a hyper-competitive league like the Indian Premier League (IPL). The management has to make a lot of tactical decisions, and hope that they back the correct players according to the situation of the game. So let’s discuss five such players who performed exceptionally well after they were released and thus were dearly missed by their former sides.
The first player in contention here is Trent Boult. Blackcaps left-arm pacer Trent Boult has established himself as one of the most lethal bowlers in the world across all formats. Boult has represented Delhi Capitals, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders in the past, and is now playing for defending champions Mumbai Indians. He has picked up 58 wickets in 46 games at an economy rate of 8.60. In this year’s pre-season Delhi released Boult and Mumbai happily bought him at a crore more than his release prize and it proved to be a master move. Trent formed a lethal combination with Jasprit Bumrah and this bowling pair was the most successful and dangerous in IPL 2020 and one of the biggest reasons why MI was such a intimidating team. Boult has been right up there in the Purple Cap race with 25 wickets in 15 games. Although Nortje did brilliantly well for Delhi, if Boult would have been bowling in tandem with Rabada Delhi pace attack could have gone a notch up without a doubt.
The second player in contention here is Quinton De Kock. South Africa limited-overs captain and wicket-keeper Quinton de Kock has played a pivotal role in the success of Mumbai Indians’ title win in 2019. Before joining Mumbai, he had played for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Delhi Capitals, and Royal Challengers Bangalore till 2018. He has scored 1874 runs in 63 innings at a healthy strike-rate of 132.25 in his IPL career. De Kock was purchased by Bangalore ahead of the 2018 mega auction for a price of INR 2.8 crores and in the eight innings he played for them, he scored 201 runs at a below-par strike rate of 124. After being released due to his dismal show, he was backed by Mumbai the next year even after a slow start in the first half of the season, and he ended up crossing 500 runs in his first season with them. He has top-scored this season as well for Mumbai- 503 runs in 16 innings at a strike-rate of 135.71.
The third player in contention is the super man from Rajasthan Royals, Rahul Tewatia. All-rounder Rahul has been one of Rajasthan’s most valuable players with both bat and ball throughout the season. Even though the Royals finished last in the league stage, he has been a huge asset to look forward to in the near future for them. Before the IPL started Delhi traded Mayank Markande and Rahul Tewatia before the season for Ajinkya Rahane. This proved to be a huge boost for Rajasthan Royals, for whom Tewatia single-handedly won two to three matches from crunch situations. He scored 255 runs at a strike-rate of 139.44 and picked up 10 wickets at an economy rate of seven. This was a blunder for Delhi since there wasn’t any consistent finisher in the team except for Stoinis and also they lacked a quality leg spinner after missing the services of the veteran Amit Mishra.
The fourth player in contention is the Gabbar of Indian cricket, Shikhar Dhawan. India opener Shikhar Dhawan had lit up the world with his performances in limited-overs cricket across the globe. Having played for Deccan Chargers, Mumbai Indians, and Sunrisers Hyderabad in his IPL career, he is now an integral part of the Delhi Capitals set up. Dhawan was one of Hyderabad’s major experienced openers for a large chunk of David Warner’s captaincy. He had played an extremely important part in their title win in 2016 with 501 runs in that season but later SRH traded him for Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma, and Shahbaz Nadeem. Having scored two back to back tons Dhawan finished second on the Orange Cap list with 618 runs at an impressive strike-rate of 44.14. Hyderabad on the other hand had to use both their foreign player choices as the openers itself in absence of Dhawan thus affecting their team balance massively.
The fifth and the last player in contention is Ravichandran Ashwin. India ace off-spinner Ashwin has been one of the best spinners over the last decade across all formats. He has represented the Chennai Super Kings, Rising Pune Supergiant, and Kings XI Punjab before joining Delhi Capitals ahead of this edition of the Indian Premier League. He captained Kings XI in 2018 and 2019, with the results not being very favourable- a seventh and a sixth-place finish respectively. Even after taking 25 wickets in 28 games where he captained them, Punjab traded him for J Suchith. They made KL Rahul the captain this season, and yet again failed to make it to the playoffs. For DC, Ashwin was excellent in the initial half of the Indian Premier League. He gave the captain a luxury of being an off-spinner who can bowl at crunch situations for the team, besides adding value after having captained an IPL side in the past and ended with 13 wickets in 15 matches in what was a successful venture for him.
