LUCKNOW: All of Priyansh Arya (Punjab Kings) or leg spinner Digvesh Rathi (Lucknow Super Giants), Vipraj Nigam (Delhi Capitals) and all-rounder Aniket Verma (Sunrisers Hyderabad) have one thing in common. They were relatively unknown cricketers outside their respective cricketing circles until they made a mark for their franchises in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL).
Verma, a 23-year-old pace bowling all-rounder from Madhya Pradesh, hadn't played a single representative game at senior level before the auction while Rathi got his T20 debut for Delhi only after being picked up by Lucknow.
No doubt they were talented but they were not considered big enough to attract bidders' attention ahead of the auction. But these cricketers were in high demand when the 2025 mega auction happened in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on November 24 and 25 last year. Of course, a few of them had fared well for their state sides but it was their eye-catching shows in their respective state T20 leagues that made them the sought after players.
Arya had come into the auction on the back of his strong performance at the Delhi Premier League where he hit six sixes in an over on his way to century. When his name came up, both Punjab and Royal Challengers Bengaluru went after him before the former managed to snap him for Rs 3.80 crore from a base price of Rs 30 lakh.
The story was the same for other relatively unknown cricketers. Rathi had returned with a bagful of wickets in the Delhi League while Nigam was quite effective with his leg breaks in the Uttar Pradesh League. This also saw him making his debut for the senior UP sides in all formats. Verma was scoring runs in bulk in the U-23 matches but it was his century in the MP League that brought him on the radar.
Undoubtedly, the state leagues turned out to be their launching pad and they made the most of it. Ashish Tuli, general manager of the Punjab franchise (Cricket Operations), admitted the state leagues have aided in the scouting process. Tuli, who has been credited for unearthing talents like Arshdeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Ravi Bishnoi and many more, accepted the leagues have given the franchise a larger pool of players to select from.
“The introduction of state leagues has indeed facilitated the scouting process. Initially, in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, our scouts were limited to evaluating just 16 players selected per state association. However, with the advent of the T20 league, our scouts now have the opportunity to assess a significantly larger pool of 90 to 120 players on a common platform in just one state league," Tuli told The New Indian Express.
Tuli, who was also an analyst with the Indian team in the past, however, said they also have to look beyond the leagues to unearth talented players. "In addition to evaluating players in these leagues, our scouts also conduct a thorough check within the state, visiting clubs and academies to uncover hidden talent and identify promising players who may have been overlooked.”
Scouting for talents is nothing new and Mumbai Indians are considered to be a pioneering force in this direction. Former New Zealand captain and India coach John Wright had discovered the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik and Krunal Pandya from the hinterlands while scouting for the Mumbai franchise. The joint-most successful franchise with five IPL titles have successfully unearthed prodigious talents year after year and Kerala's Vignesh Puthur and Punjab's Ashwani Kumar are the latest in the list. Soon enough, others joined the bandwagon with their ever-bulging teams of scouts also comprising former players and cricket analysts.
Their job was to keep looking for talents round the clock and throughout the year and tournaments, be it age-group or senior, organised by the state units or their parent body BCCI were the go-to events for them. But as Tuli mentioned, the pool of players in these tournaments were limited. Prasanna Kannan, chief executive officer of the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), one of the oldest state T20 leagues in the country, also sang from the same hymn sheet.
"Each association can field only a 15-member squad and only 11 out of them play in a match," Kannan told The New Indian Express. "You can only have two openers, two finishers probably at No 5 and 6, a wicketkeeper, a couple of spinners and a few pacers in the playing XI. You may have choices for a particular skill set but all of them cannot be in the playing XI. So here, these leagues help. Every league has multiple teams and so the requirements for a player with a specific skill set are multiple. So the IPL franchises come out and scout talents they need. They keep these players in their development squad and monitor their progress."
The TNPL CEO is not directly associated with the scouting process but has quite an understanding of the process with him being on the ground during the TNPL. "Suppose if some youngster is catching the eye of these franchises, what they will do is they monitor him, his fitness and if there is any injury concern. They have a dedicated team of physios and trainers. This team looks after the development squad. They make infrastructure available for these players and if the need arises, also work on technical flaws of the players. During the tournament also scouts visit venues and have unofficial interaction with the organisers."
As every coin has two sides, do these leagues also lead to competition among the scouts from different franchises? Tuli responded in the negative. "We don't perceive the state T20 leagues as creating competition among scouts from different franchises. Instead, we view it as an opportunity to provide a platform for a larger number of players from the respective states to showcase their skills. Ultimately, the selection of players depends on the specific requirements of all the franchises and the discerning eye of the scouts."
But as the saying goes, you can only lead a horse to water, picking up an uncapped player by a franchise cannot secure his future. The player has to perform edition after edition to stay relevant and get into the national side. Sameer Rizvi, who showed his hitting prowess in the UP League, was bought for Rs 8.40 crore by CSK in 2024 and became one of the most expensive uncapped players in the IPL history. Below par performances meant the UP player was released by the franchise ahead of the mega auction. He was eventually purchased by Delhi Capitals for Rs 95 lakh, a significant cut from what he got only a year ago.
Hopefully, the new finds in this edition make the most of the opportunities to make it big in time to come as Arshdeep, Rinku, Bumrah, Hardik, Tilak Varma and many more had done in the past.