Pollard is part of a small group of players who have played for just one franchise throughout their IPL career. Among players who have played at least 100 matches, others in this group are Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bangalore from 2008), Sunil Narine (Kolkata Knight Riders from 2011), Jasprit Bumrah (Mumbai Indians from 2013) and Lasith Malinga (i who had two stays in Mumbai).
It was Pollard’s explosive batting, athletic fielding and cleverness with the ball during the 2009 Champions League T20 held in India that caught the collective attention of the IPL franchises. While he set his base price at $200,000 in the 2010 auction, four franchises – Mumbai, Chennai Super Kings, Royals Challengers and Knight Riders – placed a maximum bid of $750,000 for him. Pollard became the first of the two players in the IPL [Shane Bond was the second] to be acquired via the silent draw rule, where franchises were required to list a price on a blank check to the highest bidder receiving the player’s services.
It was a remarkable turn of fortune for Pollard, the tall, burly man from Trinidad and Tobago, who had been left “disappointed” only a year earlier when he went unsold in the 2009 IPL auction despite having decided a base price of only $. 60,000.
