Auckland: New Zealand pace bowler Kyle Jamieson said he did not know how much the Rs.15 crore he was bought for by the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) would convert into New Zealand dollars when he woke up in the middle of the night to follow the IPL 2021 mini-auction.
“I woke up around midnight and decided to check the phone — just trying to embrace the whole experience,” Jamieson was quoted as saying by stuff.co.nz Friday.
“I don’t know if this will ever happen again. Rather than trying to avoid the situation, [I thought] I’ll sit back and enjoy it. It was certainly a weird hour and a half waiting for my name to be called up.”
While Jamieson was the second most expensive buy for Rs.15 crore, South African bowling all-rounder Chris Morris fetched the top amount of Rs.16.25 crore.
The New Zealand pace bowler said he was contacted by former pace bowler Shane Bond, the bowling coach of Mumbai Indians and New Zealand, while the bidding was going on.
“I had a message from Shane Bond as it was going and he was saying, ‘How good is this’. I didn’t actually know what the amount of money and how that translated to New Zealand dollars. It was quite cool to share that moment with him and ride that two or three minutes with him.”
Royal Challenger Bangalore director of cricket Mike Hesson revealed the reason behind buying Jamieson for as much as Rs.15 crore.
Hesson, a former New Zealand coach, said that Morris, Jhye Richardson and Jamieson were the big draws with franchises looking to spend the most on them. He felt that Morris and Richardson coming before Jamieson in the auction allowed them to go all out for the Kiwi bowler who made an impressive debut recently.
“It obviously gave us some freedom to go after Jamieson. We knew Morris, Jhye and Jamieson were always going to be in high demand. There was always going to be four teams going for three slots so we always knew we had to pay overs for it,” Hesson said on RCB YouTube.
“Jamieson coming last [of the three during the auction], obviously there’s going to be a shootout, and Kings XI came in at the back end having already got one of those guys [Richardson]. That pushed us to probably as high as we could have gone, but in the end delighted to have a player of that quality,” added Hesson.
Jamieson, 26, has played six Tests and taken 36 wickets with four five-wicket hauls.
IANS
