Bond on Daredevils and Knight Riders radar

New Delhi:

Shane Bond, former Test bowler from New Zealand, is most likely to be pulled in either of the Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils camps when the IPL 3 auction gets under way on Tuesday.

According to a New Zealand Herald report, the Daredevils are looking for a bowling partner for Ashish Nehra after Glenn McGrath had his $350,000 contract bought out.

Interestingly, Bond had a short ICL stint with the Delhi Giants and hence is familiar with that region.

The Knight Riders also eye Bond a perfect option to complement Ishant Sharma. They are already without Umar Gul and Shoaib Akhtar as the Pakistan players are once again in the auction list.

Around 12 players are expected to be added from the auction list with no team allowed more than 10 non-Indian recruits in their squad. Bond faces stiff competition from Peter Siddle, Doug Bollinger, Wayne Parnell, Kemar Roach, Mohammad Aamer and Umar Gul.

They are not yet in the 34-year-old's class as an international bowler but it will depend on his reserve price as to how certain he is of selection.

Spending will be down for this auction because each team now has a salary cap of US$750,000 and also because next year all IPL players will be available for fresg auction as their three-year contracts end this year. However, it may not stop some of the owners from splashing out on a single player to bolster the ranks within that salary cap.