Today, 6th June 2023 was the inaugural player auction of the new and revamped Maharashtra Premier League. Taking place in Pune on Tuesday, the MPL 2023 auction was quite an exciting event which took place among 6 franchise teams, who had already picked their captains and icon players a couple of days prior.
Quite a few players created headlines while others were only picked up at their base price but the most talked about player from the MPL Auction 2023 turned out to be Naushad Shaikh, who was bought by Punit Balan Group-owned Kolhapur Tuskers, which is set to be led by former India and current Royal Challenges Bangalore player, Kedar Jadhav.
Who is cricketer Naushad Shaikh?
Now everyone’s probably wondering who this kid is and where he’s come from. While every team had to pick at least 15 players to their squad and only had a budget / purse of Rs. 20 Lakh each, Kohapur decided to splurge as much as Rs. 6 Lakh on just this one player. Shaikh is an experienced cricketer in Maharashtra, having played plenty of cricket at the professional level as well, across formats.
The 31-year old Naushad Shafi Shaikh was born in Osmanabad and has represented Maharashtra in 35 First Class games, 37 List A ganes and as many as 45 T20 matches as well. His batting records include 7 hundreds and a top score of 152 in the longest format, to go with a strike rate of 123+ in his T20 career.
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Now we’re still unsure as to why he turned out to be the most expensive player of the MPL 2023 auction because he doesn’t eve bowl much. The part-timer has 12 wickets in his T20 career for Maharashtra and it’s probably the experience of playing all formats and the auction dynamics that led him to becoming the most valued player of the auction.
A couple of other publications reported the news of ‘Nauman’ Shaikh being the highest paid player of the auction but it’s Naushad and not Nauman. The MPL 2023 season begins on 15th June and we’ll then get to see how well-deserved this price tag actually is. Apart from him, others to get a hefty pay cheque included Divyang Hinganekar (Rs.4,60,000), Sahil Autade (Rs.3,80,000), and Yash Nahar (Rs.3,80,000).
For more updates from MPL 2023 and other cricketing news from around the world, remember to always stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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