Gujarat Lions in the IPL

Raina in charge

Gujarat Lions, based at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot and also playing some matches in Kanpur, took Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, James Faulkner and Dwayne Bravo from the suspended squads in the pre-auction draft, and made Raina captain. At the 2016 auction they bought more players than any other franchise, mostly Indian ones, including Dinesh Karthik and Dhawal Kulkarni. They topped the league table in 2016, then lost the first qualifier and the second, and went out one step short of the final.

A short life

In 2017 Gujarat spent less than any other franchise at the auction and finished near the bottom. The franchise was dissolved when Chennai and Rajasthan returned. Of all the franchises in this archive, Gujarat Lions spent the smallest share of their auction money on overseas players. A different Gujarat franchise, Gujarat Titans, joined in 2022 and has no connection to it.

How Gujarat Lions spent

Gujarat Lions spent about ₹21 crore at their two auctions, buying 30 players at an average of well under ₹1 crore each, the lowest of any franchise in this archive. Their best purchases were Indian: Dinesh Karthik and Dhawal Kulkarni cost ₹2.3 crore each in 2016, Karthik scoring 335 runs and Kulkarni taking 18 wickets. Dale Steyn, bought for the same price, played one match.

Their batting was built around Raina, McCullum and Aaron Finch, bought for ₹1 crore in 2016. Two of their cheapest buys went on to much bigger things. Ishan Kishan, bought for ₹35 lakh in 2016, became one of the most expensive players in the league a few years later. Andrew Tye, bought in 2016, took a hat-trick on his debut the following season.

What was left

When Chennai and Rajasthan returned, Gujarat Lions' players went back into the pool, and the franchise's name survives mainly in these tables. Its two seasons, top of the table and then near the bottom, are a compact version of a pattern that recurs across this archive: a side built quickly from other franchises' players can start well, but rarely lasts.

Gujarat Lions in CricArcade

In IPL Dynasty you can start as Gujarat Lions in 2016 with Raina, Jadeja, McCullum and the squad bought at that auction. The first season is a good test of whether a side that topped the league could also have won the knockouts, and the second of whether it could have been kept together once its best players were due to return to their old franchises.