Team owners spend a lot of money on lesser-known players in IPL 2018. But here are top 5 tried and tested players who remained unsold.

Although IPL 11 auctions bring a lot of fame and money for some uncapped players like Krunal Pandya, Jofra Archer, K Gowtham etc. Some tried and tested players are not that lucky this time around. Even after showing there worth in other tournaments, they are not able to catch the attention of team owners.

What even more surprising is that players with far less experience than these top players got a lot more reception in the auction. Now, it is evident that team owner doesn't bother much about reputation anymore. Instead, they prefer players with a better form. However, fans are still hoping that these star players will get a chance to play as replacements.

Chris Gayle and Mitchell Johnson also remained unsold in the first round of auction but they eventually got picked by Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders respectively in the second round of auction.

Here is the list of top 5 players who are not able to find any buyer in this year's auction and remained unsold.

1. Hashim Amla

It is very difficult to imagine a player to remained unsold even after having a batting average of 60.00 at the strike rate of 145.83. Unfortunately, this happened with South African veteran Hashim Amla.

He scored 420 runs in 10 innings in IPL 2017 that includes 2 scintillating centuries as well.

Traditionally he is not considered a great T20 batsman but he proved all of his critics wrong by becoming the 6th highest run scorer in the tournament. It was expected that Kings XI Punjab will definitely show interest in Amla but Virender Sehwag and company decided to put their money on Chris Gayle instead.

2. Shaun Marsh

Undoubtedly, the most successful batsman for King XI Punjab since 2008 is Shaun Marsh. He is not able to perform as per his reputation in recent editions of IPL. But still, he got some really impressive numbers under his belt, he has scored 2477 runs with a very good average of almost 40 in his IPL career. He was instrumental in IPL 2008 where he became the highest run scorer of the tournament.

Recently he smashed two wonderful centuries in Ashes, this shows that he is in good touch with bat and ready to score big in this year's IPL as well. Surely he would have felt really disappointed to remained unsold this year.

3. Tymal Mills

Tymal Mills shocked everyone when he grabbed a whopping amount of Rs 12 Cr in IPL 2017 auction to become the most expensive foreign player after fellow countrymen Ben Stokes. English T20 specialist impressed a lot in England's last tour to India in 2017 where he was able to deceive Indian batsmen with his extra pace and well disguised slower ones. Unfortunately, by the end of IPL 2017, he was marked as one of the biggest flops of the season 10.

Grabbing only 5 wickets in 5 matches with a fairly high economy rate of 8.57 runs per over is the reason why he remained unsold even at the base price of only 1 cr this time. Although we never expected mills to receive as much amount as last year, it's quite surprising for everyone to realize that he can't draw in a single purchaser for himself.

4. Mitchell McClenaghan

Mitchell was the most successful bowler for Mumbai Indians last year, even went on to become third highest wicket-taker of the tournament. He was one of the key bowlers for Rohit Sharma in every difficult situation along with Jasprit Bumrah.

All these fabulous records could not help the kiwi fast bowler to get a buyer for himself. Mumbai Indians preferred Aussie left-arm pacer Jason Behrendorff over him which is quite surprising as Mitchell McClenaghan is far more experienced and a better batsman as well.

It shows that team owners are not going for reputation this time, instead, they are more focused on recent form as Jason Behrendorff crumbled strong Indian batting line-up at Guwahati T20 recently.

5. Joe Root

Most stunning news from the current year's IPL auction is Joe root staying unsold even at the base cost. The English captain is considered as one of the best batsmen in the world right now. He is often compared with the modern-day greats like Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, and Kane Williamson.

Root had a very successful T20 world cup 2016 in India where he takes his into the final, his innings of 83 against South Africa in Mumbai is rated as one of the best he ever played. England was able to chase down a record target of 229 in this match.

English cricket experts such as Michael Vaughan also stated that teams have missed a trick by not having Root in their team.

However, he has not made himself available for the complete season and this appears to be the only reason behind the lack of interest shown by the team owners in Joe Root.