IPL Auction: Leaving India early last year might be reason behind me, Zampa going unsold, says Kane Richardson
India Today
Australia pacer Kane Richardson has said that probably leaving the Indian Premier League (IPL) season midway last year was the reason behind him and Adam Zampa going unsold in the mega auction this year.
Australia pacer Kane Richardson believes that one major factor behind him and Adam Zampa going unsold at the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 mega auction might be them leaving the IPL 2021 early during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India.
Zampa and Richardson were part of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)'s squad in IPL 2021 but they decided to leave the league midway during the India phase after Covid-19 cases started rising in the country. The IPL auction saw a number of star players remaining unsold throughout the course of two days as Kane Richardson and Adam Zampa also failed to find buyers.
"I was definitely more shocked for him. To be brutally honest, when we left last year, in early circumstances, I remember having a conversation with him. I said to him, look, this may come back and bite us, and at that time it wasn’t a priority for us to be there. We wanted to get back to Australia," Richardson was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
"So I think there’d be some kind of buyers that’d be pretty wary of picking us up thinking that we wouldn’t come again. I definitely think that’s a factor. I’m just speaking on what I think would be a factor in it. I don’t know. I’ve never had a dialogue with a franchise or a person that says that’s what would be the case. But I think I didn’t go the year before as well with the birth of my boy," he added.
Further talking about the IPL, Richardson said: "So my reputation probably is that in the last couple of years I haven't gone so it's obviously not something that I am. I try and play as much cricket as I can. But I think the circumstances in the last couple of IPLs have made me not go. But it's not a reputation I want."
"So that's just us brainstorming. I think that'd be a point of them being wary of us turning up, but I'm not 100 per cent sure," he added.
Richardson came up with an impressive performance with the ball for Australia in the third T20I against Sri Lanka as the hosts sealed an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series.
