Suresh Raina, Dawid Malan and Martin Guptill play for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022

With the addition of the Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants, the IPL will now have a total of ten teams on the field this season. In recent development 3 players are waiting to play Gujarat Titans Jason Roy place. Suresh Raina, Dawid Malan and Martin Guptill play for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022.

Despite being a late boomer at the international level, Dawid Malan has proved to be arguably England’s best T20I batter and was also the top-ranked batter in this format for quite a while. Unfortunately, no team showed faith in him at the IPL 2022 mega auction. After being released by the Punjab Kings, Malan had entered the mega auction at his base price of INR 1.50 crore.

He is currently the fourth-ranked batter in the ICC T20I Rankings and therefore, this achievement could make the Gujarat Titans franchise think hard as they eye suitable replacement options for his England teammate. The middle-order sensation could thus be one of the candidates to fill in the big shoes of Jason Roy even though he hardly got a chance last season.

Martin Guptill had come into the IPL 2022 mega auction at his base price of INR 75 lakh but found no takers and went unsold. Nonetheless, with Jason Roy out of action, it could be an opportunity for the senior New Zealand batter to make his way into the Titans setup.

Guptill had scored 152 runs during the India T20I series in November that included two half-centuries and was also the leading run-scorer in the shortest format with 3,299 runs to his name before being surpassed by the current Indian skipper Rohit Sharma. With a great reputation in international T20s, it will not be astonishing should the 35-year-old be seen donning the Gujarat jersey this time around.

In an unfortunate turn of events, no franchise wanted Suresh Raina even at his base price of INR 2 crore during this year’s mega auction. Known as ‘Mr.IPL’, Raina has not done anything exceptional in the last two seasons, He missed the 2020 edition citing personal reasons and only managed 160 runs in 12 matches at a paltry average of 17.77 in 2021.

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Nonetheless, the seasoned cricketer still remains the fourth-highest run-getter in IPL history with 5528 runs from 205 matches averaging 32.51 and a strike rate of 136.76, including a century and 39 half-centuries. Raina, who had captained the now-defunct Gujarat Lions in the 2016 and 2017 editions could well be seen in action for Gujarat in different colours and setup this time.