Suresh Raina, the former Indian cricketer, a consistent Chennai Super Kings player for 12 years, one of the highest scorers for the franchise, went unsold at this year's IPL mega auction. While Chennai was adamant about building up a nearly-same-looking squad they did not even try for the veteran cricketer.
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By the end of Day 2 of the much-anticipated IPL mega auction, the defending champions were left with 2.95 crores in their kitty after buying a full-fledged 25-member squad. Calling it difficult to leave out Raina, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanath explained that the team composition depends on the form and kind of team and that he might not fit in the new team. Last year, Raina scored 160 runs last year in the 12 matches he played for Chennai.
The 35-year-old who is the 4th highest run-scorer in the IPL history has 5,528 runs from 205 games all-over, and 4,687 runs for CSK alone.
Chennai was also disappointed to lose out on Faf du Plessis, who was picked by Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 7 crore. Apart from spending a whopping 14 crore on Deepak Chahar to bring him back to Chepauk, Chennai also bought back Dwayne Bravo, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uthappa for 4.40 cr, 6.75 cr and 2 cr respectively.