South African wicketkeeper batsman Quinton de Kock is set to be the Indian Premier League's (IPL) first trade of 2019 before the auction takes place in mid December, reports https://www.indiatoday.in.
De Kock, was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 28 million (2.8 crore) during the 2018 auction and played eight matches for them, scoring 201 runs at a strike rate of 124.07.
However, according to a report in ESPNcricinfo, the dashing opener is set to be sold to Mumbai Indians for the same price and have released Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman (Rs 22.00 million /2.2 crore) and Sri Lankan off-spinner Akila Dananjaya (Rs 5 million /50 lakh) to balance the books. MI already have two wicketkeepers in Ishan Kishan and Aditya Tare and de Kock is likely to be looked at as a top-order batsman. Last season, MI used hard-hitting West Indies batsman Evin Lewis and Suryakumar Yadav as their openers while Kishan came in at No.3. However, Lewis struggled towards the end of the season and that might be the reason Mumbai have looked towards de Kock.
Before RCB, De Kock played for Delhi Daredevils and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL and scored 927 runs, including one hundred and six fifties in 34 innings.
IPL has two trading windows with the first one starting just after the end of the season and is open before a month to the auction and the second one after the auction ends till the start of the next tournament. In 2018, IPL also introduced a mid-tournament window for franchises to trade uncapped players and players, who have play two or less matches.
The official date of the auction hasn't been released but according to ESPNcricinfo, it is set to be between December 15 and 20 in Goa.
The venue of next year's IPL will also have to be kept in mind as the 2019 general elections will be clashing with the tournament. In 2014, the first half of the tournament was shifted to UAE because of security reasons.
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