The Indian Premier League has many unique things which have played a huge role in making the tournament the number one league in the T20 world. There is a player auction every year where the franchises add new names to their squad. There are intense bidding wars for many big names at the auction.
Apart from the annual IPL Auction, personnel changes take place during the pre-season IPL trade window. Generally, uncapped players switch franchises during this period, but many teams have also traded away some star Indian cricketers to the other teams. Recently, Ajinkya Rahane got traded by the Rajasthan Royals to the Delhi Capitals. Even Shikhar Dhawan and Ravichandran Ashwin joined Delhi via the trade window.
In this article, we will glance at the five Indian stars who you might know were once traded in the IPL trade window.
5. Dinesh Karthik
Indian wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Karthik was the skipper of the Kolkata Knight Riders until the previous IPL season. Karthik is one of the biggest names in T20 cricket right now.
Back in 2011, the Punjab Kings had signed him for 4.77 crore at the auction. Just one year later, they traded him to the Mumbai Indians for a reported amount of 12.4 crore. Also, Rajagopal Sathish joined the Punjab Kings in the trade. MI won their maiden IPL season in 2013.
4. Ashish Nehra
Ashish Nehra successfully revived his career and received a grand farewell after his brilliant performances in the IPL. Very few fans might know Ashish started his IPL career with the Mumbai Indians in 2008.
The left-arm fast bowler was not so great in his maiden IPL season. As a result, MI traded him to the Delhi Capitals for Shikhar Dhawan. Nehra performed well in the South Africa conditions and guided Delhi to the semifinals by taking 19 wickets. Ahead of IPL 2013, DC signed Nehra in the trade window again in exchange of Ross Taylor.
3. KL Rahul
KL Rahul is the captain of the Punjab Kings at the moment. Rahul started his IPL career with the Royal Challengers Bangalore before moving to the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Interestingly, SRH traded Rahul to RCB for the 2016 season. Rahul had a dream outing that year as he combined forces with Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to take RCB to their third IPL Final.
2. Manoj Tiwary
Manoj Tiwary had scored the winning runs for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2012 Final against the Chennai Super Kings. But not many fans would know Tiwary joined KKR via the trade window.
The right-handed batsman played for the Delhi Capitals in the first two seasons. Before the 2010 IPL season, Delhi traded him and Owais Shah to Kolkata in exchange of Aussie all-rounder Moises Henriques.
1. Zaheer Khan
Zaheer Khan was the leading wicket-taker for Team India in their glorious 2011 Cricket World Cup. The left-arm fast bowler was exceptional in limited-overs cricket.
Khan played his first IPL season for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, but the franchise traded him to the Mumbai Indians for the 2009 season. While Zaheer did come back to RCB later, the Bangalore-based franchise had then gained Robin Uthappa’s services in return.
