IPL 2021 Auction: His Father Was a Tempo Driver, Today Chetan Sakariya Has a Contract Worth Rs 1.2 Crore

Chetan Sakariya has become the newest IPL crorepati after Rajasthan Royals outbid everyone at the auction held in Chennai on Thursday to sign him up for the upcoming season. Sakariya, 22, is a left-arm pacer who represents Saurashtra in domestic competitions.

After he was purchased by RR for a cool Rs 1.2 crore, the youngster was busy attending to his phone, replying to congratulatory messages and at the same time, entertaining the unending queues of guests at his house. The day was a memorable one for him and his family but there was a tinge of sadness too with Sakariya remembering his late brother who died by suicide last month.

The road to landing a lucrative IPL contract hasn’t been an easy one for the budding pacer. It’s just been two year since his father left job as a tempo driver to feed his family in Vartej (Gujarat). They didn’t own a TV five years back forcing a young Sakariya to watch matches at his friend’s houses.

“My younger brother committed suicide in January,” Sakariya told The Indian Express. “I wasn’t at home, I was playing Syed Mushtaq Ali at that time. I didn’t know he had passed away until I returned home. Even then, my family didn’t share the news with me. I used to ask them about Rahul’s whereabouts and they would tell me ‘he has gone out’. Sometimes , they would say he had ventured out to buy groceries. This absence is a big void for me. Had he been here today he would have been more happy than me.”

Last season, he travelled to UAE with the Royal Challengers Bangalore squad as a net bowler where he impressed their coaching staff including Simon Katich and Mike Hesson.

Now, the first thing in Sakariya’s to-do list once he gets the money is to buy a house in a good locality.

“I never wanted him (father) to work, I told him, I will take care of my family. People are asking me, what I will do with so much money, I said, let the money come first. I always wanted to shift to Rajkot, somehow I didn’t have decent money to buy a good house. Now, the first thing I will do is buy a house in a good locality,” he said.