Indian Premier League: No takers for Shane Watson as Pune, Rajkot pick core players

New Delhi: The 2016 Indian Premier League draft took place on Tuesday in Mumbai and only 10 out of the 50 players in the list were drafted by Team Rajkot and Pune respectively.

While Sanjiv Goenka's franchise Pune got Indian skipper MS Dhoni alongside Ajinkya Rahane. Steve Smith and Ravichandran Ashwin. Rajkot opted for T20 veterans in Suresh Raina, Dwayne Bravo and Brendon McCullum amongst star names.

What came as a big surprise was that of Shane Watson not being picked on Tuesday. The explosive all-rounder has been a consistent performer for the Rajasthan Royals over the years and given his skills and abilities it seems as a surprise not being in the 10 players that were selected.

Both teams had to select five players each from the star players in the list.

Watson has played in seven IPL seasons and scored 2372 runs with a decent average of 36.49. His bowling too has been good with 61 wickets in 78 matches to show his prowess in both sections.

He also has two centuries to his name in the IPL and scored a blistering 104* last season against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Watson, on the other hand, will now be sent to the IPL auction in February and his value will be determined in the market.

What Pune and Rajkot may have emphasized on is his batting form for Australia as he played his last T20 against on August 31 2015. That was his only T20 game in the entire year. After a match-winning performance against Pakistan in the ICC 2015 World Cup, Watson's form saw a slump as he featured in just five ODIs after that.

The veteran all-rounder, who retired from Test cricket earlier this year, will be looking to boost his IPL chances. With the Big Bash League about to start, Watson will be hungry for a good performance where he’ll be playing with Sydney Thunder.

Watson needs runs under his belt as that can help him to find takers in the February auction. Also the T20 World Cup starts in March 2016 and Watson would be desperately seeking a way back into the Aussie set up once again.