IPL Mega Auction: End of an era? 'Mr. IPL' Suresh Raina goes unsold

Bengaluru, Feb 13:  Even as the ten franchises splurged cash, former Indian cricketer Suresh Raina went unsold at the IPL 2022 mega auction, here on Sunday.

After going unsold on the first day, the veteran batter, who had a base price of Rs 2 crore, was ignored by franchises on the final day of the auction as well, which meant that Raina went unsold for the first time in an IPL auction.

This will only be the second IPL season Raina would miss since the competition began in 2008. He had also missed the IPL 2020 season after returning home from UAE due to personal reasons.

Known as 'Mr. IPL', Raina returned to the CSK outfit in 2021 but had a poor season during which he scored only 160 runs at an average of 17.77. And now with age not on his side, it could mean the end of the road for Raina in the cash-rich league.

The dashing southpaw is the fourth-highest run-getter (5,528 runs) in the history of the IPL, scoring 5,528 runs at an average of 32.51 and only has Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, and Rohit Sharma ahead of him.

Raina, who had last played in Indian colours in a series in England in July 2018, retired from international cricket in 2020. The all-rounder, who scored 5,615 runs from 226 ODIs and 1605 from 78 T20Is for India, was also a part of the 2011 World Cup-winning team under MS Dhoni.