South African all-rounder Chris Morris on
Thursday became as the most expensive buy in the IPL history after he
was purchased by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 16.25 crore. A massive bidding war erupted with multiple teams participating as the bidding amount quickly went into eight figures from Morris’ base price of Rs 75 lakh. 

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Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings kicked off the bidding, with the defending champions pulling out for Rajasthan Royals to join in, who eventually edged out the Preity Zinta-owned franchise.

And Twitter was soon flooded with reactions and memes, with cricket commentator Harsha Bhogale saying,
“being released has been an excellent investment for Maxwell and
Morris”.

Aussie all-rounder Maxwell bagged Rs 14.25 crore when Royal Challengers Bangalore
bought him and then Morris went to surpass Yuvraj Singh’s record of Rs 16 crore for the Jaipur-based squad.

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“The most expensive player in IPL
history is now a Royal,” Rajasthan Royals said.

Former Chennai Super Kings batsman S Badrinath called
Morris an ‘overpriced’ purchase as he tweeted:

ESPN’s Matt Roller went on to talk about
how RCB let the South African go at Rs 10 crore and then fuelled the bid up to
Rs 9.75 crore.

A Twitter user pointed at Rajasthan
Royals’s tendency to go big on player, naming Jaydev Unadkat as one of them.

“Rajasthan Royals bought Chris Morris
for 16 cr what can we expect  from a
franchise who had bought unadkat for 10 cr,” he said.

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ESPN’s South African correspondent went on
to say that this amount could feed a South African person for his/her whole
life, given the minimum wage.

Being a part of Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2020, Morris scored 34 runs in nine games and took 11 wickets.

He finished as the team’s second highest wicket taker behind leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal. However, the Chinnaswamy based franchise let the Portea go in a major layoff spell ahead of the 2021 auctions.