Amid Hardik Pandya trading saga, Ravichandran Ashwin decodes MI and CSK’s trading strategy

The trade deal of Hardik Pandya between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans created a stir among cricket fans. Days before the deadline there were reports around the media that the star Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya will move back to his old franchise Mumbai Indians as they are in talks with his current franchise to trade him through the IPL trading window in an all-cash deal of 15.5 crores.

But as the deadline passed, in an anticlimax move, the official broadcaster revealed that Hardik Pandya had been retained by Gujarat Titans but soon after a couple of hours, again news broke that Hardik Pandya had been trading to Mumbai from Gujarat in an all-cash deal of 15.5 crores and an undisclosed transfer fee.

Amid all this transfer drama and chaos, veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has his say on the whole Hardik Pandya transfer saga and also decoded the transfer strategy of successful IPL franchises like CSK & MI. On his YouTube channel, Ashwin revealed another interesting incident related to the transfer of players that transpired during his captaincy stint with the Punjab Kings.

CSK and MI don’t believe in giving players through trading windows

Ravi Ashwin noticed that CSK and MI don’t trade their players with other players during the IPL trading window. They either buy players through these transfer windows into their teams in an all-cash deal or release the players to go into auction.

He said, “Trading so many players or releasing so many players is not a well-known practice so far in the IPL. Because if you look at these IPL teams and talk to them, especially with Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, there has been a trend. They have never given players, they have only taken players. And they have five titles each. That's a proper platform that they have built their franchise on,".

He also revealed an incident when he was the captain of the Punjab Kings in 2018-19 and Mumbai Indians wanted to transfer Punjab Kings’s David Miller into their team and were willing to pay as much price as possible but the deal couldn’t happen as Ashwin wanted a player in return which MI was nowhere close to accepting.