Several cricket pundits were left amazed when none of the eight franchises showed interest in buying veteran batsman Yuvraj Singh in the first round of the IPL auctions 2019 on Tuesday in Jaipur. However, the situation turned upside down towards the end of the event and India’s World Cup 2011 hero found a new for the upcoming season.
Mumbai Indians bought Yuvraj Singh in a last-minute buy at his base price of Rs 1 Crore. The owners looked extremely happy after having him in the side as Akash Ambai called it their biggest steal in the tournament's 11-year-old history.
Soon, the veteran Indian batsman took to his Twitter account to thank the Mumbai franchise and gave a special message to skipper Rohit Sharma.
Here’s the tweet:
Mumbai Indians also brought back Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga, who served the team for long, at his base price of Rs 2 crore.
“To be honest, we had budgeted a lot more for Yuvraj and Malinga. At Rs one crore, a player like Yuvraj is probably a (biggest) steal of 12 (sic) years. He has won every trophy there is to be won. We focussed on experience a lot as well on the youngsters. We have identified specific roles for both of them,” Ambani said.
For the first time in the history of IPL, Yuvraj will be donning the blue MI jersey. In 2015, the left-hander fetched a record Rs 16 crore deal with the Delhi franchise since then his IPL fortunes have fallen rapidly. He was picked up by KXIP at his base of the price of Rs 2 crore earlier this year before the team released him following a lean 2018 IPL.