5 most expensive IPL flops

It is said that money alone can’t buy happiness. Rightly so, money can’t guarantee success either. Just ask the cash-rich Indian Premier League franchisees over the years who have gone on to splurge ridiculous amounts of money to what they thought were gold-mines.The IPL auctions have always sprung up surprises. Sometimes an unknown player goes for a humongous amount and sometimes an international player with proven track record goes unsold.As usual in every IPL auction, big money is shelled out by franchisees to get their players of choosing. Some perform and do justice to the amount they were bought for and some turn out to be a total dud.Here we look at the players from all the seasons of IPL who raked in a lot of moolah but couldn’t do justice to their price tag:

#1 Andrew Flintoff (Chennai Super Kings)

Andrew Flintoff was one of the top rated allrounders at that time in both ODIs and Tests.

He was bought by the Chennai Super Kings in the 2009 IPL auctions. He had a lot to prove and justify the staggering amount of $1.55 million equalling Kevin Pietersen‘s price tag. Known for his destructive batting and reverse swing, his IPL career never took off. He returned home for an ankle surgery after featuring in just three matches for Chennai, raising doubts over whether he should have committed to the IPL at all. He performed poorly scoring just 62 runs and took 2 wickets in his 3 match stint during the second edition in South Africa.

The all-rounder unable to regain his fitness later announced his retirement from all forms of the game in 2009 and did not return to play in the IPL in 2010.

#2 Robin Uthappa (Pune Warriors India)

In the third edition of the IPL in 2011, the now disbanded Pune Warriors India franchise paid a whopping $2.1 million for Robin Uthappa. The aim was to build a team around him and Yuvraj Singh. He was the second most expensive player in that auction behind Gautam Gambhir.

Nicknamed 'The Walking Assassin' for his tactic of charging the bowler, Uthappa played for PWI for three seasons scoring 1103 runs in 46 matches.

The franchise was laced with superstars including Yuvraj Singh but in his absence in 2012, he failed to give any stability at the top barring few games. Even though he was individually performing, he couldn’t meet the sky-high expectations of many.

#3 Dinesh Karthik (Delhi Daredevils)

It is no wonder that Delhi Daredevils continue to languish at the bottom of the table in all IPL seasons in recent times. DD bought Dinesh Karthik for an astonishing amount of $2.2 million which sent shockwaves around the cricketing world.

He received the second highest bid at the 2014 IPL auction after Yuvraj Singh. Many cricketing pundits believed the price offered to him was way too exorbitant. The wicket-keeper batsman proved them right by scoring mere 325 runs at an average of 23 with three half-centuries and a strike rate of 126 in 14 matches. He had been shoddy behind the stumps and his batting was not that extraordinary.

#4 Daniel Christian (Deccan Chargers)

A hardly known name to the world of cricket came into existence when Daniel Christian was purchased by Deccan Chargers for $900,000 in the 2011 auction. No one expected him to go for such a price given he had only played three Twenty20 internationals for Australia till then.

On paper, he is a perfect T20 player who can hit the big shots, can bowl medium pace and is a decent fielder. But his performance did not match upto his price tag of almost a million dollars. In his two seasons at DC, he only managed to score 335 runs and took 19 wickets at an economy of around 8 in 21 matches.

As expected he was released by the newly formed SunRisers Hyderabad in 2013. In the next IPL Player Auction,RCB snapped him up for $100,000, an amount almost 90% lower.

#5 Tyron Henderson (Rajasthan Royals)

Tyron Henderson, a South African player who had played only one T20 international was bought by Rajasthan Royals in season 2 of the IPL auction for a mouth-watering price of $650,000 which was even greater than what that they paid to their captain Shane Warne. He was involved in a fierce-bidding war between RR and DC which sky-rocketed his base price of $100,000.

Considered a T20 specialist, he held the record for the most wickets taken in Twenty20 cricket at that time. But, he played just two games, making 11 runs and taking one wicket.

Next season, he was released by the RR and didn’t even make the shortlist for the auctions.