IPL playerWest Indies2019 to 2026
Nicholas Pooran
On scorecards: N Pooran · Right-hand bat
Nicholas Pooran, a wicketkeeper-batter, has played eight IPL seasons for three franchises. In eight seasons the title has not yet come.
The arrival
Nicholas Pooran arrived through the auction: Kings XI Punjab paid ₹4.20 cr, against a base price of ₹75 lakh.
That first season brought 7 matches and 168 runs. The best was still to come.
The peak
The high point with the bat was 2025, for Lucknow Super Giants: 524 runs at an average of 43.7, striking at 196.2 in a season when the league as a whole struck at 152.9, with 5 fifties, and a highest score of 87 not out. There were two seasons of 400 runs or more in all (2024 and 2025).
Franchise by franchise
2019 to 2021, Kings XI Punjab. Bought at the 2019 auction for ₹4.20 cr. 33 matches and 606 runs.
2022, Sunrisers Hyderabad. Bought at the 2022 auction for ₹10.75 cr. 14 matches and 306 runs.
2023 to 2026, Lucknow Super Giants. Bought at the 2023 auction for ₹16 cr. 57 matches and 1,615 runs.
3 spells with three franchises in all. The longest was with Lucknow Super Giants, 2023 to 2026.
How the runs came
Across the career, Nicholas Pooran has struck at 163.8. The league around those same seasons, weighted by how much batting each one involved, struck at 143.4, so Nicholas Pooran has scored about 20 runs per hundred balls faster than the typical batter of the time. 71% of the runs came in fours and sixes: 169 fours and 186 sixes.
The ball-by-ball record adds the detail. 35.1% of the balls Nicholas Pooran faced were dot balls, a lower share than 58% of the 140 batters who have faced 500 balls or more in the IPL. A six came every 8.3 balls, the 3rd-best rate in that group, and a four every 9.1.
The fielding record: 45 catches, 6 run-outs and 4 stumpings.
At the auction
Nicholas Pooran has gone under the hammer four times. The highest price was ₹16 cr, paid by Lucknow Super Giants in 2023, more than 8 times the base price. The price climbed with the reputation: ₹30 lakh in 2017, ₹16 cr by 2023. Being bought did not always mean playing: no match followed for Mumbai Indians in 2017.
Seasons without an auction entry were played under a retention, a trade or a signing made outside the auction.
Where it stands
On the all-time IPL lists, among 810 players, Nicholas Pooran stands 14th for sixes. The story is still being written: 2026 was another season with Lucknow Super Giants.
Season by season
| Season | Team | M | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 50/100 | Wkts | Econ | Best | Ct | POTM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Kings XI Punjab | 7 | 168 | 48 | 28.0 | 157.0 | 0/0 | – | – | – | 1 | ||
| 2020 | Kings XI Punjab | 14 | 353 | 77 | 29.4 | 168.1 | 2/0 | – | – | – | 7 | ||
| 2021 | Punjab Kings | 12 | 85 | 32 | 8.5 | 111.8 | 0/0 | – | – | – | 3 | ||
| 2022 | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 14 | 306 | 64* | 38.3 | 144.3 | 2/0 | – | – | – | 9 | ||
| 2023 | Lucknow Super Giants | 15 | 358 | 62 | 29.8 | 172.9 | 2/0 | – | – | – | 9 | 2 | |
| 2024 | Lucknow Super Giants | 14 | 499 | 75 | 62.4 | 178.2 | 3/0 | – | – | – | 7 | 1 | |
| 2025 | Lucknow Super Giants | 14 | 524 | 87* | 43.7 | 196.2 | 5/0 | – | – | – | 8 | 1 | |
| 2026 | Lucknow Super Giants | 14 | 234 | 63 | 16.7 | 127.2 | 1/0 | – | – | – | 5 |
Franchise journey
- Kings XI Punjab: 2019 to 2021
- Sunrisers Hyderabad: 2022
- Lucknow Super Giants: 2023 to 2026
Ball-by-ball detail
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Dot balls faced | 35.1% |
| Balls per four | 9.1 |
| Balls per six | 8.3 |
| Catches | 45 |
| Run-outs | 6 |
| Stumpings | 4 |
At the auction
| Auction | Set | Base price | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | – | ₹30 lakh | Sold to Mumbai Indians for ₹30 lakh |
| 2019 | – | ₹75 lakh | Sold to Kings XI Punjab for ₹4.20 cr |
| 2022 | WK1 | ₹1.50 cr | Sold to Sunrisers Hyderabad for ₹10.75 cr |
| 2023 | WK1 | ₹2 cr | Sold to Lucknow Super Giants for ₹16 cr |
Sources
- CricArcade IPL season statistics
- CricArcade IPL auction archive
- Kaggle IPL Complete Match Dataset 2008-2026, ball-by-ball, cross-checked against Cricsheet