The great Indian show
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Jan. 9: By and large there were long moments of boredom as auctioneer Richard Madley read out the names with not even an iota of interest from the ten tables. It brings into question the IPL's decision to have such a big pool with many relative unknowns just ending up making up the numbers. In the end, only 127 players from the auction pool earned the right to play in the IPL with 225 left ruing their missed chance.
Only three Indians went unsold — Sourav Ganguly, Wasim Jaffer and V.R.V. Singh - and this will definitely be kissing goodbye to their T20 careers.
Apart from the Chargers' catch, only three others, Umesh Yadav, Munaf Patel and Y. Venugopal Rao were the only ones to generate some interest in the franchisees with the Delhi Daredevils bagging Yadav ($750k) and Venu ($700k) while Munaf was roped in by Mumbai Indians for $700k. The Chargers too pursued Umesh before giving into the Daredevils’ interest.
If 72 cricketers went under the hammer on Day One, 55 were snapped up by the owners on the second day which saw a host of international cricketers slip out of the picture. The IPL rules allow a maximum of ten foreign players in the squad, but only five of the ten franchisees — Chennai Super Kings, Daredevils, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kochi and Pune — chose to exercise that option. The Chargers stopped at nine, Mumbai Indians picked up six, Kings XI and Kolkata Knight Riders were content with seven while Rajasthan Royals have the least number of foreign internationals — six — in their team.
The attention now turns on the uncapped players and the franchisees have been cautious to have the necessary funds to net the domestic players. The Chargers, having used their funds judiciously, have the maximum amount of $2.125m in their kitty after picking up 14 players. Kings XI are the next best as far as the purse is concerned, having $2.05m in hand.
The biggest spenders were Royal Challengers Bangalore who coughed up $8.64m to buy 15 players and are left with just $360,000 for the uncapped players. Following them were Kolkata Knight Riders ($8.57m) and the Daredevils, who spent $8.25m from their salary cap. New entrants Pune, who bought Robin Uthappa for $2.1m, spent $8.07 while Kochi purchased players worth $7.79m.
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