IPL 2022: Some big names turn out as big disappointments for IPL franchises

The 15th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to begin on March 26. 2 new franchises have been added to this edition – Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants. Players like MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Rabindra Jadeja have made significant contributions to the popularity of the glorious franchise-based cricket tournament.

In the previous 14 seasons, the statistics between IPL teams were very close. Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings have won five and four titles respectively. On the other hand, Delhi Capitals, Punjab Kings, and Royal Challengers Bangalore have not yet grabbed the IPL title for even a single time.

Much of the teams’ success depends on the investments the franchisees make for the players and what the players perform. Here’s a player from each franchise, who is a big name but could not be able to perform for his team in multiple seasons.

Punjab Kings (PBKS) – Glenn Maxwell

Glenn Maxwell was seen as a long-term investment in the franchise after the then Kings XI Punjab reached the IPL final for the first time in 2014. But in the next three seasons, he played for Punjab and scored only 634 runs in 36 matches. He only scored 552 runs in the IPL 2014.

After not being interested in Maxwell for two years, Punjab again bid strongly for him in the IPL 2020 auction, but for this Australian, it turned out to be a nightmare season. Because after scoring only 108 runs in 13 matches, this explosive all-rounder completely failed to perform in that event. Maxwell is still a big name in the IPL, but Punjab has been very disappointed by his performance over the years.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) – Navdeep Saini

In the IPL 2018, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) recruited Delhi-based pacer Navdeep Saini for Rs. 3 crores. Saini was expected to solve the problem in RCB’s death-bowling with his great speed and take the bowling attack further.

But unfortunately, 17 wickets in 28 matches from a bowler like him is not considered enough, and his economy was above 8.47. The RCB franchise did not retain him for the IPL 2022 as their investment was not fully effective.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) – Vijay Shankar

Vijay Shankar batted with a strike rate of 143.24 in the 2018 edition of IPL. As a result, Sunrisers Hyderabad chose to invest in the all-rounder as a middle-order cog. However, from that point of view, Shankar’s performance in IPL is not good at all, he failed to impress either with bat or ball.

In the three seasons between 2019 and 2021, Shankar scored just one half-century and took 8 wickets in 29 matches. Despite the Sunrisers having an inexperienced batting line-up during this period, Shankar failed to hold the team together or establish a name for himself in the team.

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) – Kedar Jadhav

Kedar Jadhav’s stock has risen after a strong performance for India in limited-overs cricket, especially after his match-winning century in the home series against England in 2017 took him to another height. Although not performing well for his former team RCB in 2017, Jadhav’s 143.54 strike rate in the middle order impressed the Chennai Super Kings. They made a big bid to field the Maharashtra player.

However, due to an injury in the first game of the season, Jadhav’s IPL 2018 ended in the blink of an eye. He dropped out of the team for the whole season due to injury. He then played two more seasons for CSK but failed to perform as expected and was eventually released. Despite CSK’s patience and faith, Yadav turned out to be a weak investment.

Delhi Capitals (DC) – Shahbaz Nadeem

Although Shahbaz Nadeem is a veteran player of IPL, his statistics did not give him a very good position. The 32-year-old has taken just 48 wickets in 72 IPL matches with an economy rate of 7.56.

His previous franchise was the Delhi Daredevils. Between 2011 and 2018, he took 40 wickets in 61 games. Delhi was one of the worst-performing franchises till 2018. However, despite Nadeem’s years of experience, he couldn’t play a significant role in the team.

Mumbai Indians (MI) – Dhawal Kulkarni

Despite playing almost 100 IPL matches, Dhawal Kulkarni has not been able to establish himself as a frontline pacer for any IPL team. However, except for a good season in 2016 for the Gujarat Lions, Kulkarni has never played a full season for any team. He has so far taken 86 wickets in 92 matches in the IPL.

Kulkarni played six seasons for the Mumbai Indians (MI) from 2008 to 2013 before returning in 2020. In the last two seasons, he has played only one match and both times he was wicketless. MI’s continuous success has overshadowed Kulkarni’s performance over the years.

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) – Kuldeep Yadav

For the last few years, the main strength of the Kolkata Knight Riders has been relying on their spin attack guns like Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine, and others where Varun Chakraborty recently joined. With the push of former captain Gautam Gambhir, Kuldeep Yadav showed some good performance in the tournament.

However, after a decent season in 2018, Kuldeep’s journey got interrupted. He took just five wickets in his next 14 IPL matches in 2019 and 2020 and could hardly restrict his opposition batsmen. Kuldeep has spent the entire 2021 season on the bench and hopes that now the new team – Delhi Capitals, will change his fortunes.

Rajasthan Royals (RR) – Jaydev Unadkat

Out of Jaydev Unadkat’s 85 IPL wickets, 24 of his windfalls came during the 2017 season for Rising Pune Supergiant. Unfortunately for the Rajasthan Royals (RR), the left-arm pacer failed to come close to that endeavour in the four years from 2018 to 2021, although RR paid a lot for Unadkat’s services.

He has gone for plenty of runs between 2018 and 2020 as his economy rate was close to 10 runs per over. He has spent time on the bench in IPL 2021 and hopes to do better in 2022.