No MI homecoming! Ishan Kishan goes to LSG for Rs 14.5 crore at IPL 2025 ‘mock’ Auction

Since making his debut for the Mumbai Indians in 2018, only Suryakumar Yadav has scored more runs for the franchise than Ishan Kishan.

Ishan Kishan isn’t coming home. The wicketkeeper batter, who’s been with the Mumbai Indians (MI) for the last six seasons, won’t continue his OneFamily journey. Well, at least that’s what happened at Ravichandran Ashwin’s mock Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction. Having already conducted bid wars for marquee players, Ashwin shifted his focus towards wicketkeepers. A few top names were on the list, but none gathered as much interest as Kishan.

Ishan Kishan gets a pay cut at Ashwin’s ‘mock’ IPL 2025 auction

Kishan has a base price of Rs 2 crore at the real auction, and so Ashwin’s auction rules followed the same. However, at his mock IPL 2025 auction, franchises were allowed to start the bidding process at Rs 5 and 10 crore. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) started the bid at Rs 5 crore; Punjab Kings (PBKS) joined them but bowed out after Kishan got a Rs 10 crore bid from CSK. Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) took control from there on and took him home for Rs 14.5 crore.

Funnily enough, this is a pay cut for Kishan. For those who’ve forgotten, MI had bought the wicketkeeper back for a whopping Rs 15.25 crore at the 2022 mega auction, and if the same pattern is followed at the Jeddah auction, Kishan would earn Rs 75 crore less.

How much would MI pay for Ishan Kishan at IPL mega auction?

As mentioned above, MI paid Kishan paid more than Rs 15 crore for Kishan at the 2022 auction. This was after they didn’t have a spot to retain him. This wasn’t the case this time around. They choose another southpaw, Tilak Varma, over him. This might be an indication that he have lost faith in him.

Overall, Kishan doesn’t have great numbers. His 2020 season (516 runs at 57.33 while striking at 145.74) was so good that it gave MI false hope. They paid big for him and didn’t get the results they wanted in the seasons that followed. In 7 seasons, his average has been over 30 just thrice, as an opener, he’s scored over 400 runs just thrice, and his strike has been over 140 just four times.

One has to think that he doesn’t warrant anything over Rs 8 crore at the IPL 2025 mega auction. Virat Kohli, Travis Head, Sai Sudharsan, Abhishek Sharma, Faf du Plessis, Phil Salt, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma, Jos Buttler, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Prabhsimran Singh—all of these openers performed better than him in IPL 2024 season. Most of these players also got retained; it just shows how far behind Kishan is at this moment.