Special Report: IPL Player Auction Breaks New Ground

By Martin Laurence

The IPL’s auction of international cricket stars took place over the weekend with franchises spending a combined total of US$62.8m on player’s from India and abroad over the two days. The 10 franchises in total agreed deals with 127 of a possible 353-man auction of cricketers to form the core of the fourth edition of the high-profile Twenty20 event, beginning on April 8. 12 deals were agreed prior to the auction meaning that 139 players were signed in total.

At the start of the event a salary cap was enforced of $72.3m across all 10 IPL sides with the opening day spending of $52.8m leaving a remaining $19.5m for day two of the ground breaking event.

Day 1 of the auction, on Saturday 8 January, saw 30 Indian national player’s signed, with 42 stars agreeing deals from oversees. If franchises wished to take their full allocation of players than 18 Indian players remained for day 2, with 53 overseas players still available to make a maximum total of 71.

Day 2 saw 55 player’s taken for a total of $9.9m, the total spend over the two days was therefore $62.8m. In total 52 Indian native’s were signed alongside 87 from overseas nations.

45 of the 52 Indian player’s were signed during the two-day auction, whilst 36 Australians, 18 South African’s, 9 Sri Lankan’s and 7 from England and New Zealand were also snapped up.

A further 3 players were signed from the West Indies with 1 from Bangladesh and the Netherlands apiece completing the overhaul.

Of the 10 franchises in the league, the Chennai Super Kings were the most active during the auction, signing 18 players, just ahead of the Delhi Daredevils and Team Kochi with 17 each. The Royal Challengers Bangalore signed 16, while Team Pune and the Deccan Chargers signed 14.

Amongst the least involved franchises were the Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians with 12 each. The Kings XI Punjab signed just 11 players whilst the Rajasthan Royals were the least active franchise, signing just 8 cricketers over the weekend.

Indian Test Batsman Gautam Gambhir became the most expensive player in the history of the IPL, going for $2.4m with franchises opting for youth over experience in many cases. Gambhir was sold to the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Of the English player’s sold, the likes of Kevin Pietersen ($615,000 to the Deccan Chargers), Stuart Broad ($400,000 to Kings Punjab XI), Eoin Morgan ($350,000 to the Kolkata Knight Riders) and Paul Collingwood ($250,000 to the Rajasthan Royals) were the most notable.

Numerous high-profile stars were overlooked in the bidding process with Ashes heroes Graeme Swann and James Anderson both going unsold at $400,000. Cricketing icons such as Sourav Ganguly and Brian Lara both also went unsold.