IPL Auctions, 2018: One overseas player each franchise could release in the trade

Chennai Super Kings - Mark Wood

Chennai Super Kings are arguably the best team to play in the Indian Premier League. The franchise was banned for two years (2016-17) and made a comeback in IPL 11. The team made the comeback in style as it went on to win the IPL for the third time in 9 years. The current Champions also continued their record of qualifying for the playoffs in each and every season they have featured in.

Chennai's dominant batting was one of the main reasons behind their awe-inspiring performance. The only weakness that the team possessed last year was fast bowling. Although, Lungisani Ngidi made the bowling line-up stronger in the second half of the tournament, the three times champions suffered a great lack of death bowlers in the first half of the league.

CSK tried Mark Wood as the partner of Dwayne Bravo in the slog overs against MI in the first game of the tournament but he turned out to be a big upset as he was brutally tonked by the MI batsmen. He gave a total of 49 runs in his 4-over expensive spell.

CSK would undoubtedly look to buy a better death bowler in the upcoming auctions and for this Wood is the perfect guy to be released.

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Royal Challengers Bangalore - Quinton De Kock

The star-studded line-up of Royal Challengers Bangalore failed to make it to the playoffs for one more season last year. In spite of having the likes of Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Washington Sundar, the team finished the tournament at the 6th position due to the lack of confidence and inability to figure out the right team combination. The team had plenty of top order batsmen in the squad while there were hardly any bowlers who can bowl yorkers during the slog overs.

Nonetheless, the franchise tried to correct a few wrongs in the off-season trade window. The Royal Challengers sold the WK/Batsman Quinton De Kock to Mumbai Indians in the first ever pre-auction trade window in the history of IPL.

The franchise already has quite a few Wicket Keeper batsmen such as Parthiv Patel, Brendon McCullum and AB De Villiers and with these guys already in the team, De Kock was just a liability. On the other hand, Mumbai Indians, in order to facilitate the trade released Mustafizur Rahman (2.2 crores) and Akila Dananjaya (50 lakhs).