A lot has been said about the sort of bids that Ben Stokes and Tymal Mills attracted at the recently held IPL auction.

Stokes was bought by Rising Pune Supergiants (and who came up with that name?) for US$ 2.16 million, the highest bid ever made for a non-Indian player at the IPL, and the highest bid ever for any player after Virat Kohli.

Great for him. Really, for Stokes this is one hell of a deal. He is a wonderful cricketer no doubt. He has just been made Vice Captain of England and he is definitely one of their star performers in Tests and ODIs.

But he has an extremely poor T20 record; international and otherwise.

He averages under 15 with the bat in T20 Internationals. He has a highest score of 38 in 18 innings. Not a single 50.

In 68 domestic T20 innings, he has crossed fifty 5 times.

His strike rate is in the mid 130s, but then that is just about average for a T20 performer.

So what got him this huge pay cheque?

His bowling?

Ha! He's the same bowler who got hit for 4 consecutive sixes in the final over of the World T20 final by Carlos Remember the Name Brathwaite. He lost that cup for England.

And that was not a one off.

Ben Stokes is among the 10 bowlers with the worst ever economy rate and worst ever average in the history of T20 Internationals !!!



Yet Rising Pune Supergiants dished out over 2 million dollars for him.

Just wow.

Now we come to Tymal Mills.

Have you even heard of him?

He has played 4 T20 Internationals for England, where he averaged 40 with the ball. More recently, he has turned out for Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League, who bought him for US$ 70,000.

And you know what Royal Challengers Bangalore paid for him?

US$ 1.8 million ! The highest ever paid for a specialist bowler.

Unbelievable!

Thora paisa mujhe bhi dedo yaar... I can promise a better effort with the ball than either, 100%.