Former England Test captain Sir Alastair Cook said he would be interested to see if anyone picks veteran pacer James Anderson in the upcoming mega auction for the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Anderson, England’s leading wicket-taker with 704 scalps, retired from international cricket this year after playing in the Lord’s Test against the West Indies in July. He has now registered for the IPL 2025 mega auction at a base price of INR 1.25 crore. Anderson, who now works as a fast-bowling mentor with England, last played a T20 game in 2014 and has never played in the IPL before. The IPL 2025 mega auction will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on November 24 and 25, and has got a longlist of 1574 players.
“I think it’s brilliant, I’ll be interested to see if anyone picks him up. He’s obviously just trying to experience as much cricket as he can. If he doesn’t get picked up that might be it for his cricket, but if he does, what an opportunity, what an experience.”
“He’s played so much international cricket but he’s never played for a franchise. I say that might be it, but there might be other franchise tournaments he’s about to put his name forward for, so it’s interesting,” said Cook to TNT Sports.
England are all set to play five T20Is against the West Indies, which marks their last assignment before Brendon McCullum takes over as England’s white-ball team’s coach in January 2025, a year which will see the team play in the Champions Trophy in February-March.
Cook talked about how England could fare under McCullum in white-ball cricket going forward. “What I know from talking to the England guys in the Test team is that McCullum has an amazing ability to unite a team and push it forward in one direction, and the ability to seemingly get the best out of individuals so they’re performing at their peak.”
“So I think he’ll do that, and it’ll be interesting to see what he thinks is England’s best side. He’s probably been involved in selection, but at the minute we haven’t played our best side for a long time because the fixture schedule’s been so tight.”
“We’ll get a period now where they might be able to play their best one-day side or as close as they can to, and then we’ll get an idea of what McCullum wants and the players he thinks are going to lead England in the ICC Champions Trophy and then pushing forward.”
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