New Delhi: Suresh Raina, who is popularly known as Mr IPL, went unsold in the IPL mega event held in Bangalore. For his fans as well as for cricket lovers, this has become a hot topic of discussion.
Raina's previous franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK) also did not put in bid for Raina. Now, Kashi Vishwanath, CEO of Chennai Super Kings has broken the silence over not retaining Raina.
Speaking on YouTube, Vishwanath explained that even though Raina was consistently performing well for CSK, the player's form and team structure are kept in mind while forming the team.
A video of the same was shared by CSK, wherein, Vishwanath was seen saying, ''Raina has been one of the players to perform consistently for CSK for the last 12 years. Of course, Raina's absence was very difficult for us. But at the same time, you must also understand that the composition of the squad depends on the form and type of team that any team would like to have. So, we thought he might not fit in this team''.
Notably, CSK also did not bid for Faf du Plessis, who was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore on the first day of the auction.
'We will miss those who were with us for the last decade. That is the process and dynamics of the auction,'' Vishwanath added.
Raina is the fourth highest run scorer in the history of IPL. Raina has scored 5,528 runs in 205 IPL matches. Only Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma are ahead of them. Raina scored 4687 of these runs for the Chennai franchise. He is the highest run-scorer in IPL for Chennai Super Kings.
Notably, at 35, Raina is still the best player when it comes to performance. However, it seems that his base price of Rs 2 crore might have appeared too high for the franchises. There could another reason that he went unsold and that is he struggled big-time in the 2021 season, scoring just 160 runs in 12 matches at a paltry average of 17.77.
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