Sunrisers Hyderabad added to their batting firepower but Mumbai Indians didn’t have another homecoming, as Ishan Kishan was sold to SRH for 11.25 crore in the IPL 2025 auction.
Kishan will join the murderer’s row of heavy hitters in SRH’s top order, making an all-southpaw and destructive top three where he will bat alongside Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head.
Kishan leaves MI after seven seasons at the Wankhede Stadium, where he fell out of favour as one of the unfortunate ones to miss out to the heavy stock of Indian batting talent in that lineup.
Punjab Kings were the other team fighting for Kishan’s services, but lost out on the wicket-keeper batter as SRH’s late bids proved decisive in the back-and-forth. Although Kishan was seen as one of the top Indian batters in the auction pool, he fell well short of the valuation provided to players such as Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, and Venkatesh Iyer.
SRH batting continues to look dangerous
Meanwhile, SRH will be very happy with their replacement of Rahul Tripathi with the equally-aggressive Kishan, who could prove to be a gamechanger for the team in orange as their power-packed batting continues to develop.
Kishan has scored 2644 runs in the IPL, in 105 matches of experience. His best season was 2020, where a 516-run season helped Mumbai Indians to the title that year as he proved himself to be a star in the format and earned his international debut soon after. However, a fairly meagre strike-rate of 135 in the IPL might have been a red flag for some franchises in the auction.
Kishan will join the powerful SRH team, with Sharma and Head opening and Heinrich Klaasen and Nitish Kumar Reddy following up in the middle order. SRH will be looking at another batter to help out with a batting lineup which set a multitude of run-scoring records in the IPL 2024 season.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians will be seeking a different alternative to Kishan as their opener, with plenty of domestic and international talent on offer at the top of the order still in the auction bank. Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya will remain a formidable middle order for the five-time champions, while Jasprit Bumrah continues to go from strength to strength across all formats.
MI were silent in the auction for multiple sets before finally purchasing their first player of the night, shelling out 12.5 crore for a return of Trent Boult to the team.
