None of the IPL franchises placed bids for Brett Lee during the IPL auction and thus, he went unsold.
That was a bit of a surprise for everybody because Lee had performed very well for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the last 3 seasons and thus, it was believed that at least 2 or 3 franchises would try and secure his services, but, that didn’t happen.
Lee has not been playing international cricket since a while now and thus, there would be some doubts in the minds of the team owners about his rhythm.
However, playing in the Big Bash League last year, Lee had shown that he still is a very useful bowler in the shortest format. He was clearly not bowling with the speed with which he used to bowl while he was an international player, but, with his yorkers and slower deliveries, he was quite effective.
The other thing which makes Lee a good T20 player is his batting abilities. He is not a proper batsman, but, he can smash the ball out of the park towards the end of the innings if needed.
The Australian speedster can still play in the next edition of IPL if any fast bowler who has been picked gets injured and the franchise which owns that player needs a replacement for him and they approach Lee. But, these things are not guaranteed to happen.
Lee was not the only experienced player who went unsold during the auction though. The Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardena who was the captain of Delhi Daredevils in the tournament last year also failed to attract bids from the franchises. The auctioneer tried to sell him in the second round of the auction too, but, even then, nobody showed interest in him.