India’s mystery spinner, KC Cariappa started playing cricket with a “tennis ball” and even earned livings from it as well. However, in 2015 he fetched a price tag of INR 2.4 crore at the auctions of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Cariappa likes to call himself a mystery spinner and he was confident of Getting picked at the auction but not for the astronomical amount he eventually attracted from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

While the players were being traded at a hotel in Bangalore, local boy Cariappa and his family were glued to the television in their small rented accommodation in Bagalugunte. Talking about the excitement he said, “I don’t know what to say. It is really a dream come true. I was confident of being picked for my base price of Rs 10 lakh but never thought of the crores. I just hope I get to play in the eleven.”

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Come to think of it, such is the world of IPL that Cariappa fetched a bigger price than the likes of Kevin Pietersen (INR 2 crore), Michael Hussey (INR1.5 crore) and current England captain Eoin Morgan (INR 1.5 crore).  Cariappa’s confidence of getting a team stemmed from his a season with KKR during the Champions League T20 last September. He says the 15 days at a camp in Hyderabad did wonders for him.

Though Cariappa has player under-19 cricket for Karnataka, he only got attention when he took 11 wickets, including Manish Pandey’s, in the Karnataka Premier T20 League (KPL).

Talking more about his background, Cariappa said that he started playing with the season ball at 17 and was a seaming all-rounder before taking up spin. He said, “I don’t care about the money for now. I hope I get to play for Karnataka soon. My parents have sacrificed a lot for me. With the money I get, I want to buy a house for them.”

However, the youngster couldn’t manage to find a buyer in IPL 2018 despite having decent performance for the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), hope he will have a great 24th birthday this year.