New Delhi: Cricket's biggest carnival - the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction - got underway at Bangalore on Saturday, with 353 players going under the hammer and a total of USD 90 million to be spent.
The number of bidders went from eight to ten as the Pune and Kochi franchise, too, took their seats in the auction room at the ITC Royal Gardenia in the Garden City.
That undoubtedly added to the battle royale, chiefly fought between Nita Ambani (Mumbai Indians), Vijay Mallya (Royal Challengers Bangalore), Subrata Roy (Pune Warriors) and the GMR (Delhi Daredevils).
The first round began with nine players, starting with the prolific Indian opener Gautam Gambhir who wasn't retained by his former employer Delhi Daredevils. And the first bang of the hammer was heard when Gautam Gambhir was bought for a whopping USD 2.4 millon by Shahrukh's Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), tagging him as sold.
Next up was Sri Lankan Tillakaratne Dilshan with a reserve price of 400,000 and the Royal Challengers Bangalore bagged him for USD 650,000.
Indian speedster Zaheer Khan, who played for Mumbai Indians in the last edition, was bid successfully for USD 900,000 by Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The big-hitting Yusuf Pathan was expectedly sold for a big amount to Kolkata Knight Riders who ended up as the highest bidders for the Baroda player with USD 2.1 million.
The other players to go under the hammer in round one were New Zealand's Ross Taylor, bagged by Rajasthan Royals for USD 1 million; England's Kevin Pietersen, bought by Deccan Chargers for 650,000; Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene, who went for USD 1.5 million to Kochi; Yuvraj Singh, bought by Pune Warriors for USD 1.8 million; and finally South African AB de Villiers who went for USD 1.1 million to Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Round two began with what could remain the biggest surprise, if we may call it that, of the auction. Sourav Ganguly, India's most successful opening batsman and skipper, was brought onto the auction table for a reserve price of USD 400,000. But jaws dropped when not even a single bidder came forward to open his bid. The icon remained unsold!
The Australian representation in the auction began with limited-over specialist and their new T20 skipper, Cameron White. The Deccan Chargers ended up with White in their team for a price of USD 1.1 million.
Jacques Kallis, arguably world's best all-rounder, was the third one to go under the hammer in round two. Kolkata Knight Riders, who seemed to be on a spending spree, once again went berserk and threw open their purse for him, shelling out $ 1.1 mn.
Mumbaikar Rohit Sharma, once tipped as the heir-apparent to Sachin Tendulkar, surprised with a final bidding price of USD 2 million spent by Mumbai Indian's Nita Ambani.
The next buy of the auction was Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh would have had a wry smile on his face when Nita Ambani bagged him for a not-so-bad USD 850,000. It remains to be be seen if the old-time foes Harbhajan and Symonds will become pals under the Mumbai umbrella.
Deccan Chargers couldn't have had a better replacement for Adam Gilchrist when they took home Kumar Sangakkara, who can perform the all three roles of batting, leading and wicketkeeping as well as the Australian. The Hyderabad team had to shell out USD 700,000 for the Sri Lankan skipper.
The outgoing Deccan skipper, Adam Gilchrist, was the next name announced by the veteran English auctioneer Richard Madley. Deccan's loss became Kings XI Punjab's gain who bought
Gilchrist for USD 900,000. That brought out an interesting fact related to Sangakkara and Gilchrist. Both wicketkeeper batsman, both skipper of their ex-teams and both went to each other's ex-employer.
Two other members of India's 'Fab Four' - Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman - were given better treatment by the bidders as opposed to Ganguly. Though they didn't bag a huge amount, Dravid was sold to Rajasthan Royals for USD 500,000 while Laxman went for his reserve price of 400,000 to Kochi.
Robin Uthappa, the star of IPL-3, caused a major tug-of-war between Pune Warriors and a couple of other bidders and was finally snapped up for a staggering USD 2.1 million by the Pune team.
There were five other bids before the lunch interval: South Africa's Johan Botha, bought by Rajasthan Royals for USD 950,000; New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori, sold to Royal Challengers Bangaloe for USD 550,000; Kiwi stumper Brendon McCullum, who went to Kochi for USD 475,000; Indian speedster S Sreesanth, who was bagged by his home team Kochi for USD 900,000; and India's out-of-favour but talented all-rounder Irfan Pathan who took home a handsome USD 1.9 million, paid by Delhi Daredevils.
After the luncheon interval, round three too had a lot of surprises in store and sent expectations for a toss. The big news of the session was that Brian Lara, who hoped to make a celebrated comeback to cricket by way of IPL, remained unsold.
Not even a single franchise came forward to bid for the West Indian legend and that must have broken many a sleeping spells.
However, surprises didn't end with Lara. Jesse Ryder and Herschelle Gibss too remained empty-handed as they didn't lure anyone to shout for them either. But there were some good buys too. Let's take a look at those!
Mr. Cricket Mike Hussey got the money-spenders off the block in the third session when he was lapped up by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for USD 425,000. Punjab chose to buy back Australian Shaun Marsh and got their purse lighter by Rs 1.94 crore.
Among the big names on the table in this session were JP Duminy, David Hussey, David Warner, Brad Haddin, Angelo Mathews and Dwayne Bravo. And here is the detail of where, to whom and for how much they went.
JP Duminy (USD 300,000, Deccan Chargers), Shikhar Dhawan (USD 300,000, Deccan Chargers), Saurabh Tiwary (USD 1.6 million, Royal Challengers Bangalore), David Hussey (USD 1.4 million, Kings XI Punjab), David Warner (USD 750,000, Delhi Daredevils), Parthiv Patel (USD 290,000, Kochi), Wriddhiman Saha (USD 100,000, Chennai Super Kings), Dinesh Karthik (USD 900,000, Kings XI Punjab), Naman Ojha (USD 270,000, Delhi Daredevils), Brad Haddin (USD 325,000, Kolkata Knight Riders), Tim Paine (USD 270,000, Pune Warriors), Davey Jacobs (USD 190,000, Mumbai Indians). James Hopes (USD 350,000, Delhi Daredevils), Ravindra Jadeja (950,000, Kochi), Shakib al Hasan (USD 425,000 Kolkata Knight Riders), Stuart Broad (USD 400,000, Kings XI Punjab), Abhishek Nayar (USD 800,000, Kings XI Punjab), Angelo Mathews (USD 950,000, Pune Warriors), Dwayne Bravo, (USD 200,000, Chennai Super Kings), Steven Smith (USD 200,000, Kochi) and James Franklin (USD 100,000, Mumbai Indians).
Australian Graham Manou, England's Matt Prior and Luke Wright and South African Mark Boucher found no bidders.
Next up were pace bowlers, out of whom Praveen Kumar suprisingly bagged the most bucks (USD 800,000) to play for Kings XI Punjab, while Australian pace machine Brett Lee got favour from KKR who bagged him for his base price of USD 400,000.
Other bowlers auctioned in this round were Ishant sharma (USD 450,000, Deccan Chargers), Ashish Nehra (850,000, Pune Warriors), Brett Lee (USD 400,000, KKR), Morne Morkel (USD 475,000, Delhi Daredevils), Ryan Harris (USD 325,000, Kings XI Punjab), Dirk Nannes (USD 650,000, RCB) and Doug Bollinger (USD 700,000, CSK).
Dilhara Fernando's name invited no bidders among the franchisees.
The pack of spinners was led by world's highest Test wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan, who made himself richer by USD 1.1 million, paid by the new entrant Team Kochi. The surprise package turned out to be Piyush Chawla who remained in Punjab's scheme of things, going for a whopping USD 900,000.
But another shock was in store when one of world's leading offie Graeme Swann joined the list of snubbed players as he too drew a blank.
Here's how the rest of the spinners fared: R Ashwin (USD 850,000, CSK), Ajantha Mendis (not sold), Pragyan Ojha (USD 500,000, Deccan Chargers), Murali Karthik (not sold), Amit Mishra (USD 300,000, Deccan Chargers), Nathan McCullum (USD 100,000, Pune Warriors) and Romesh Pawar (USD 180,000, Kochi).
The auction was rounded off with probably the snatch of the day in terms of English sensation Eoin Morgan for a mere USD 350,000, with KKR being the beneficiary.
And the players who brought curtain down on day one of the most-awaited auction were Chamara Kapugedera (not sold), Aaron Finch (USD 300,000, Delhi Daredevils), Brad Hodge (USD 425,000, Kochi), Tamim Iqbal (not sold), Callum Ferguson (USD 300,000, Pune Warriors), Manoj Tiwary (USD 475,000, KKR), Cheteshwar Pujara (USD 700,000, RCB), S Badrinath (USD 800,000, CSK) and Paul Collingwood (USD 250,000, Rajasthan Royals).
If day one was anything to go by, there is plenty in store on the final day on Sunday, when each of the franchisees will try to elbow each other and make that one last push to gain a psychological edge before the action shifts to the playing arena come April.
It's also not the end of the world for the big guns who missed out on the party on Saturday. Ganguly, Gayle, Swann, Lara and all the other unsold players will be back to stake a claim on day two as the franchisees take a final call on their respective teams.
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