 "Here's why Shardul Thakur, Prithvi Shaw went unsold in IPL 2025 auction")
The IPL 2025 mega auction witnessed a lot of big signings with youngsters also fetching good money on the night. However, some of the players remained unsold in the auction as the likes of Prithvi Shaw and Shardul Thakur saw themselves left with no contract at the end of the 2 days in the auction.
"The game catches up with you, right?" said Ricky Ponting, who has spent almost 10 years as a coach in the IPL.
At Delhi Capitals (DC) a few years ago, he had worked with Thakur. "So, you know, Shardul, only a couple of years ago, I think we paid about INR 10 crores for him in an auction. And now he's not. Now he's unsold," he added. ALSO READ: IPL 2025 mega auction: Top 5 surprise signings ahead of the new season Shardul was bough at Rs 10.75 Crore in the auction back in 2022 by DC. With the impact player reducing the value of all-rounders in IPL, Thakur couldn't fecth him a contract this time round.
| Shardul Thakur IPL stats | |||||||||
| YEAR | Matches | Runs | Wickets | BBM | Avg | Econ | SR | 4W | 5W |
| Career | 95 | 2869 | 94 | 4/36 | 30.52 | 9.23 | 19.85 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 9 | 309 | 5 | 2/61 | 61.8 | 9.76 | 38 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 11 | 220 | 7 | 2/23 | 31.43 | 10.48 | 18 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 14 | 473 | 15 | 4/36 | 31.53 | 9.79 | 19.33 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | 16 | 527 | 21 | 3/28 | 25.09 | 8.8 | 17.09 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 9 | 275 | 10 | 2/28 | 27.5 | 8.5 | 19.4 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 10 | 281 | 8 | 2/18 | 35.12 | 9.36 | 22.5 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 13 | 431 | 16 | 2/18 | 26.93 | 9.23 | 17.5 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 12 | 315 | 11 | 3/19 | 28.63 | 8.25 | 20.81 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 1 | 38 | 1 | 1/38 | 38 | 12.66 | 18 | 0 | 0 |
Ricky Ponting 'sad' for Prithvi Shaw Ponting also shared his thought for Prtihvi Shaw and was sad to see him not able to get a contract in the end. Once regarded as a prodigy for scoring a century on his Test debut at just 18, Shaw was even compared to Sachin Tendulkar. However, his career now draws parallels with Vinod Kambli, a player whose promising talent ultimately faded due to personal setbacks and unfulfilled potential. Recently, Shaw was dropped from the Mumbai Ranji team, with his fitness issues being highlighted as a significant factor in his decline.
| Prithvi Shaw IPL stats | ||||||||||
| YEAR | Matches | NO | Runs | HS | AVG | SR | 100 | 50 | 4S | 6S |
| Career | 79 | 0 | 1892 | 99 | 23.95 | 147.47 | 0 | 14 | 238 | 61 |
| 2024 | 8 | 0 | 198 | 66 | 24.75 | 163.64 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 5 |
| 2023 | 8 | 0 | 106 | 54 | 13.25 | 124.71 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 1 |
| 2022 | 10 | 0 | 283 | 61 | 28.3 | 152.97 | 0 | 2 | 37 | 10 |
| 2021 | 15 | 0 | 479 | 82 | 31.93 | 159.13 | 0 | 4 | 56 | 18 |
| 2020 | 13 | 0 | 228 | 66 | 17.53 | 136.52 | 0 | 2 | 27 | 8 |
| 2019 | 16 | 0 | 353 | 99 | 22.06 | 133.71 | 0 | 2 | 45 | 9 |
| 2018 | 9 | 0 | 245 | 65 | 27.22 | 153.12 | 0 | 2 | 27 | 10 |
"Sad," he said. "You know, Prithvi, I still say now he is as talented a player as I probably ever worked with. He goes unsold in the auction and then doesn't even come back in the accelerator. And there are a lot of teams here that are looking at him. He's not playing. But as I said, the game catches up with you. So, yeah, I guess that. Yeah, that's about all you can say."
"So he's been to our High Performance center in Nagpur. He had trials there and really impressed Zubin and the team on the ground there. Both Zubin Bharucha (talent scout and inhouse coach of RR) and Vikram were there from our coaching setup. He is an incredible talent. And of course you've got to have the confidence that they can step up to the IPL level. So yeah, lots of work will go in over the coming months to continue to develop him. But he is a hell of a talent and we're really excited to have him as part of the franchise," Jake Lush McCrum, the CEO of Royals, said.