Sanju Samson under spotlight ahead of Kerala Cricket League auction

The spotlight will be on Sanju Samson in the player auction for the second season of the Kerala Cricket League (KCL), which will be held here on Saturday.

Samson, who missed the first season of KCL, is among the 156 players who will go under the hammer. With an enhanced budget, the six franchises will go all out to pocket the prize catch, and Sanju is expected to break the KCL’s record of expensive buy, which was Rs. 7.4 lakh, the Trivandrum Royals doled out for M.S. Akhil last season .

Kerala’s under-19 captain is Ahmed Imran, and Under-19 internationals Mohammed Ennan, Jaivin Jackson, and Jobin Jobi. Aditya Baiju , Manav Krishna, Advait Prince and Vidhun Venugopal are some of the exciting young talents in the auction list.

ALSO READ | From setbacks to showstopper: Inside Tiruppur Tamizhans’ opener Amith Sathvik’s rebuild

However, the franchises are likely to face a tricky situation as they have to buy a minimum of four players from Pool A which consists of top drawer players.

The players from Pool A command a base price of Rs. 3 lakh, and 31 players are enlisted in this category. Pool B has 48 players with base price of Rs. 1.5 lakh while C category has 77 players with a base price of Rs. 75,000.

A franchise has to buy a minimum of 16 players and a maximum of 20 players with the available budget The six franchises have retained a total of 14 players. Among the players on the auction list, 42-year-old K.J. Rakesh is the oldest while 16-year-old Jaivin Jackson is the youngest player. Noted commentator Charu Sharma is the auctioneer.

The available budget with the franchises is as follows