IPL 2023 auction: RR official reveals why franchise nearly spent entire Rs 13 crore purse on Harry Brook

In the recently concluded IPL 2023 auction, Rajasthan Royals (RR) added nine players to their roster, despite having a purse of just Rs 13.2 crore. While the inaugural IPL champs bought Jason Holder and nine other players on their base price, they came into the auction with an entirely different plan. 

The Jaipur-based franchise had wanted to buy England batsman Harry Brook, and they went as far as spending Rs 13 crore of their purse on just one player, which would have left them with just 20 lakh remaining. 

Brook was part of the first set alongside the likes of Mayank Agarwal, and Kane Williamson, and while the Englishman joined Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) after the Orange Army splashed Rs 13.25 crore to land Brook’s services, he was also on RR’s radar.

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It was an unprecedented scene, something never seen before in the history of IPL when one franchise was eager to splash its entire budget to buy just a single player. 

Speaking to Cricbuzz, Rajasthan Royals’ official Romi Bhinder said, “We knew about our limits and actually we went to Kochi with an intention to buy just one player. We were aware that if we had got Brook, we would have only five foreign players.”

If Rajasthan Royals managed to land Brook for 13 crore, they would still have left with 20 lakhs, but they would have needed to buy one more player to meet the league’s criteria of having a minimum squad of 18 players. 

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They came into the action with just 16 players, of which only 4 were overseas recruits. As fate would have it, RR never landed Brook, and they ended up buying as many as 9 players. They bought 3 overseas players Adam Zampa, Joe Root and Donovan Ferreira, while they also added uncapped players like KM Asif, Abdul PA, Akash Vashisht, Kunal Rathore and Murugan Ashwin.

Having reached the final of IPL 2022, but falling short against Gujarat Titans (GT), the Sanji Samson-led unit will be hoping to go the distance and win their second-only IPL title next year.