IPL 2023: 5 players who have not played for their home city yet

Indian Premier League (IPL) is the largest sporting event in India as it has made a place in the hearts of Indians not just as a cricket tournament but as a festival. In the last 15 years, 15 franchises took part in the league, of which 10 actively play in the tournament every year. Regarding city-wise participation, 12 cities have got a chance to be a part of the competition so far.

In the inaugural edition, top names such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Yuvraj Singh represented their respective home cities with the aim of helping their respective franchises to have a large fan following. However, after the third season, the scene changed as many prominent players went to different franchises based out of their cities. 

At present, Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant are playing for their home city based franchises in Mumbai Indians (MI) and Delhi Capitals, respectively. On the other hand, there are also some players who haven’t got a chance to play for their cities after 15 IPL editions. 

Here are the five players who haven’t represented their home cities yet

5. Dinesh Karthik

In the maiden IPL edition, Dinesh Karthik joined Delhi Capitals (DC) and scored 145 runs in 13 matches as a lower-middle-order batter. Following his first season, the franchise backed the wicket-keeper batter for the next couple of seasons as well. After the third season, DC released him and he became part of five more franchises till 2021.

In 2011, Punjab Kings (PBKS) showed faith in him but broke ties with him before the next season. Similarly, Mumbai Indians (MI) also bought the veteran to reinforce their batting line-up in the fifth and sixth seasons but parted ways with him later. Following his experience and skills, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) signed Karthik in 2018 and appointed him as their skipper.

After representing different franchises in 14 IPL seasons, Karthik finally joined Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for the second time in 2022.  Earlier, he played for the three-time runners-up in 2015 as well. Witnessing his super keeping and batting skills, many franchises gave him a chance but his home team CSK never did that due to the availability of the star-batter MS Dhoni. However, it will be interesting to see if Karthik becomes a part of CSK after Dhoni's retirement. Like the former India captain, Karthik could also be an ideal match-finisher and wicket-keeper for CSK.