Promising youngsters get a raw deal at Kerala Cricket League auction

The player auction for the second season of the Kerala Cricket League (KCL) left many junior cricketers in the State disappointed and it raised serious questions about the aim of the fledgling league in promoting talent.

Twenty-three players, who represented the State in Cooch Behar Trophy, Col. C.K. Nayudu Trophy or Vijay Merchant Trophy, went unsold in the auction.

The notable omission being Mohammed Enaan, the India under-19 player currently touring England. Manav Krishna, who was chosen as the Promising Player in the NSK Trophy T20 tournament, also went unsold. Abi Biju, S. Abhiram, Kamil Aboobacker, Kiran Sagar and Rohan Nair were among the players who found no buyers.

Of the 49 players registered in Category B with base price of ₹1.5 lakh, only 16 were picked by the teams while 49 out of the 84 players in Category C with a base price of ₹75,000 were traded in the auction.

The auction threw up surprises like 42-year-old K.J. Rakesh, who served as junior selector last season, getting picked while many promising youngsters were overlooked.

“The teams splurged money to buy Category A players and exhausted half of their purse. They then looked for cheaper players in Category C, sidestepping Category B players. The KCA made a mistake by not allowing unsold players in Category B to be traded along with Category C players at a reduced base price like it did with Category A players. Most of the coaches of the franchises teams were based abroad and weren’t familiar with the local talent,’‘ said Biju George, former Indian women team’s fielding coach and current talent scout of Kolkata Knight Riders.

The KCA secretary Vinod S. Kumar admitted the mistake and said the association will make it mandatory for the team to pick a fixed number of Category B players from next season onwards. “We didn’t foresee such a scenario this season. The bidding for Category A players left the teams short of money and some barely managed to buy the minimum number of 16 players. For the next season we are thinking of making it mandatory for the teams to pick up a fixed number of players from Category B and even allowing Category B players to be sold along with Category C players at a reduced price. Those at the auction table should not be parochial. The teams also picked some players who either failed the yo-yo test or missed it. I must admit the bidding wasn’t fair on some players. The KCL will have some initial flaws which we will rectify in due course of time,’‘ said Vinod.