Who is Romario Shepherd? All-rounder sparks bidding war before Sunrisers Hyderabad bag him for ₹7.75 crore

In what came as a surprise bidding war at the IPL 2022 Auction, Romario Shepherd went for a whopping ₹7.75 crore to the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) after being involved in a five-way paddle battle.

The player was part of the accelerated auction and bears a similar likeness to Odean Smith in terms of gameplay. Although it was the Lucknow Super Giants who started the opening bid at 75 lakh for the all-rounder, Mumbai joined in the battle.

Chennai followed suit and Hyderabad were the last to enter the fray but stood firm fending off other franchises. In the end, Shepherd had a buyer at the IPL 2022 Auction.

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Who is Romario Shepherd? What was the logic behind SRH bidding heavily for him at the IPL 2022 Auction?

Shepherd is a West Indies and Guyana Amazon Warriors player and is known for hitting accurate lengths with the ball. A heavy ball is part of his arsenal and he is more than just a handy batter who can tonk sixes at will.

Predominantly a T20 player, Shepherd's numbers are quite impressive. His T20 record sees him with 53 wickets at and an average of 21.18 and an ER of 8.18.

He turned out for the Windies in their recent T20I series against England. The hard-hitting all-rounder was part of the outfit for the series against Ireland and Pakistan as well.

Add 315 runs from the bat from 44 games, Romario Shepherd packs quite a punch lower down the order — something that the Sunrisers could use in one of those games that need to finish with a flourish — an acquisition in IPL 2022 Auction they'll be proud of.

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Sunrisers Hyderabad IPL 2022 Squad so far:

Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Romario Shepherd, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kartik Tyagi, Abdul Samad, Umran Malik, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tripathi, J Suchith, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran and Marco Jansen.