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Former Indian player Wasim Jaffer said that West Indies wicketkeeper-batter Nicholas Pooran was overpriced at the IPL Auction 2023, which concluded on Friday, December 16, at the Grand Hyatt in Kochi.
Pooran was sold to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) for a whopping amount of INR 16 crore in the auction. The West Indies middle-order batter has scored 912 runs in 44 IPL innings at a strike rate of 151.24. He managed 306 runs in 13 innings for the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in IPL 2022.
In November 2022, the Orange Army released Pooran just nine months after acquiring his services for INR 10.75 crore in the 2022 IPL mega-auction.
While analyzing LSG's auction picks for the IPL 2023 season, Jaffer was of the opinion that Pooran was too expensive for the Lucknow outfit.
The Punjab Kings' batting coach told ESPNCricinfo:
"They’ve got good players, Sams and Romario Shephard, I think was a good buy, even though there’s a question mark about them delivering in the IPL. Nicholas Pooran again falls in that category even though he’s a quality player, but I think he’s very overpriced."
"We all were surprised by the price Pooran went for" - Tom Moody
Former Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody, who worked with the West Indies power hitter in the last edition, was surprised by the 27-year-old's final auction price. However, the former Australian player dissected LSG's requirements in their middle order.
Moody said:
"We all were surprised by the price Pooran went for. They clearly feel that he’s gonna have a lot of needed power in their middle order, also a left-hander, which is an important point of difference to have in that middle order."
Nicholas Pooran was sold to Mumbai Indians for the first time in the 2017 IPL auction but never played for them.
He made his IPL debut for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in the 2019 season. He played 26 matches across three seasons for Punjab before moving to SRH in 2022.
LSG will be the fourth franchise for the West Indies gloveman. With South Africa's Quinton de Kock in the team, he might not keep wickets. That being said, Nicholas Pooran is quite good as an outfielder as well.
