Australian skipper Michael Clarke could reap the advantages of his Test cricket heroics soon with a rich offering for himself in the world's most expensive T20 league. The 31-year-old, who announced his retirement from T20 Internationals in January 2011 to concentrate more on longer formats of the game such as Tests and ODIs, is apparently to be in huge demand in the IPL-6 players' auction schedule to begin from Feb 3.
It has been already known that at least two teams, Mumbai Indians and Pune Warriors India, are interested to own the prized catch in the form of the Oz Test skipper. In fact, Clarke will also get to lead the team that purchases him.
The Mumbai franchise is currently led by disgraced off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and the recently inducted Pune franchise were captained by Sourav Ganguly last season. MI are expecting to have a significant change with the captaincy being stripped off Singh, while Pune, who fared badly by remaining last in 2012, have already released their skipper Ganguly, who retired from all forms of cricket already. They were unable to keep Clarke who scored just 98 runs in six games for them as he was signed up as a 'replacement player' and as per IPL constitution, those players have to return to the auction pool. Clarke had not registered his name in the auction pool previously, but only to heed later.
Pune is expected to have an edge over Mumbai in buying Clarke as they have around $3,962,826 left in their kitty, out of the maximum $12.5m allowed for owning the players. MI, in comparison, would be getting into the fold with only $1,808,261 left.
"Any team which is eyeing a captain should be gunning for him. He was exceptional for Australia last season," said a representative from the PWI camp. Star cricketer Yuvraj Singh, who led Pune in their beginning season but got out last year owing to his ill health, is "98 percent not a captaincy material as he wants to just participate as a player so that he can prove his batting credentials," included the representative.
The lone snag here for PWI might be a last-minute change of heart from Clarke, as he followed it in 2009 by reversing his plans to participate in the auction at the last minute. During that point of the time, it was IPL commissioner Lalit Modi who had mentioned that Clarke had skipped the auction as he was not confident if any franchisee would buy him at his base price ($1 million).
There are other Indian players who have retired from active cricket at the international level and are expected to play a crucial role. For instance, it was Rahul Dravid who turned out to be a messiah for Rajasthan Royals in the wake of retirement announced by Shane Warne. Dravid led the team successfully by captaining and mentoring at the same time. Similarly, ace Test cricketer who retired last year is expected to play a key role for his team Kochi Tuskers soon.
