Jan. 9: England players might have been on a high after winning the Ashes for the first time in Australia in 24 years. But their ‘high’ bid price at the IPL auction meant they lost out on the glitz and glory of IPL.
Only seven English players from a list of 37 — Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad, Eoin Morgan, T20 skipper Paul Collingwood, Michael Lumb and Dmitri Mascarenhas —were picked up by the franchisees. Even Pietersen had to settle for a pay cut at $650k after being the most expensive player in the last auction at $1.5 million.
Similarly, Morgan, Collingwood and Owais Shah were bought for a low price compared to the previous auction, while Broad earned his first IPL pay-day after Kings XI Punjab picked him up for $400,000. RCB owner Vijay Mallya, who is the best of friends with Pietersen, meant only business when he did not bid for his former captain. “I have to say in relation to the configuration of IPL team, we can only have a maximum of 10 foreign players and only four in the playing eleven. We went for the most attractive propositions and also on the availability of the players,” Mallya said before throwing more light on the factors behind ignoring the English players.
“The most important reason was all the England players were overpriced . Had they been priced reasonably a few more would have gone on board,” Mallya added. Mallya has a point here. All-rounders like Luke Wright and Michael Yardy, who have not yet established themselves internationally, kept their base price at the highest available — $400,000. Both paid heavy price for that as they were not acquired by the franchisees.
It also didn’t help that the English Cricket Board gave the green signal (No Objection Certificate) to the IPL governing council only in the wee hours on Saturday, the first day of the auction. As such they were obviously not in the franchisees wish-list, even though most of the players would have been available for IPL-4, due to begin on April 8. The biggest losers were fast bowler James Anderson and off-spinner Graeme Swann, in prime form currently.
But the most shocking outcome of the auction was the snub on Chris Gayle. The West Indian failed to get a bid on his base fee of $400,000, with a possible reason being that he would miss a big chunk of the tournament because of their series against Pakistan starting on April 21.