Pace sensation Mustafiz gets a prestigious IPL deal
Sports Reporter
As it was speculated, Bangladeshs bowling sensation Mustafizur Rahman got a prestigious IPL deal even before he completed a year in the international cricket circuit. He was acquired by Sunrisers Hyderabad during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 auction for $208,000 (INR 1.40 crore or BDT 1.62 crore approximately) yesterday.
The kind of performance the left arm pacer showed since his international debut added a many accolades in short period. The most esteemed was his place in the ICC ODI team of the year, just six months after he made his international debut.
As he demolished much-vaunted Indian batting line up after his ODI debut, an IPL deal was always on the cards. It was finally materialised on the first day of the auction. He became just sixth Bangladeshi player to be the part of glamorous tournament which set a benchmark for the domestic T20 cricket.
Abdur Razzak, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mohammad Ashraful, Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal were the other players to be acquired by different franchisees of IPL. Apart from Tamim, all of the players played at least one match in the tournament. Tamim who was the part of Pune Warriors set-up didnt get any match. While the others IPL career ended playing just one game, only Shakib Al Hasan continued playing IPL regularly, being an integral part of the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Mustafizur price however is the third highest amongst the Bangladeshi player. Mashrafe was bought by KKR in 2009 for $ 600,000 while Shakib was acquired by the same team by $ 425,000 in 2012. Now Shakib has been playing in KKR for an amount of INR 2.80 crore.
While Mustafizurs sensational performance fetched him just INR 1.40 crore from the base price of INR 50 lakh, some other players who never matched his performance got an attractive financial deal. In IPL such sort of interesting or bizarre things happened in abundance. The Bangladesh bowling sensation whose cutter and slower still remain a mystery for the batsmen however expressed his satisfaction just to get a team.
I didnt think about the money. I just only hoped to get a team and I got it. I am happy to get it. I am keen to show my performance in the big stage where big players have been playing, he said on cell phone while he was engaged in a shooting for an advertisement.
Mustafizur was also acquired by Lahore Qalanders in maiden PSL but due to his shoulder injury he was unable to play there. Even if he would have been fit, it was uncertain that BCB would permit him to play there since Asia Cup and World T20 was approaching and the Bangladesh team management was reluctant to expose Mustafizur to the rest of the world before those two tournaments.
However two weeks ago when his IPL deal looked imminent, BCB media and communications committee chairman Jalal Younus told The Independent that BCB would have no bar to permit Mustafizur play in IPL since it would have held after World T20. Mustafizur however is the lone Bangladeshi player in IPL-9 to be picked up while the rest of the four-Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar and Taskin Ahmed went unsold. The franchisees could take the unsold players in later stages though.
Big name players like David Warner, Eoin Morgan, Yuvraj Singh, Kane Williamson besides some good Indian cricketers will play in Sunrisers along with Mustafizur. With a settled side and a penetrative bowling attack, they certainly rank as one of the favourites to go the distance in this years IPL extravaganza.
While Sunrisers was lucky to buy him, Royal Challengers Bengaluru was also interested and took part in bid, only to be defeated by Sunrisers. Mustafizur has played only seven T20 internationals in his career, and took 10 wickets at an average of 15. In nine ODIs, he has 26 wickets at 12.3 with 6/43 his best performance. He played two Tests and has four wickets in his bag.
In crickets recent past, no one has made as much of an impact on debut as Bangladeshs new pace sensation Mustafizur Rahman. He is the only player to have been awarded man of the match on his ODI and Test debut. While he wracked havoc in Indians highly talented batting line up with the figure of 5-50 and 6-43 in the first two matches in his sides historic 2-1 victory, he claimed three wickets in four ball to demolish South African batting on his Test debut. He also excelled on his T20 debut, taking two for 20 to announce he is going to be the new poster boy of Bangladesh cricket.
