It was a day of fluctuating fortunes, till noon, for a large number of cricketers who went under the hammer at the IPL Players Auctions in Bengaluru on Saturday (February 6).
Australian all-rounder Shane Watson was sold in the Vivo IPL player auction to the Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 9.5 crore ($1.39 million). Watson was aggressively pursued by various teams before getting sold to RCB.
Yuvraj Singh too was pursued by a number of teams before the Hyderabad Sunrisers got him for Rs 7 crore, half the price from his last year price of Rs 14 crore.
Mohit Sharma went to Kings XI Punjab for Rs 6.5 crores while Praveen Kumar went to Gujarat for Rs 3.5 crore. Indian pacer Ishant Sharma was bought by Pune Super Giants at Rs 3.8 crore. Making a comeback to the Indian T20 team recently, pacer Ashish Nehra (base price Rs 2 crore) went to the Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs 5.5 crore while South African pacer Dale Steyn went to the Lions for Rs 2.3 crore. Dinesh Karthik, who was the second most expensive player in the 2014 and 2015 auctions went to Gujarat Lions for Rs 2.3 crore.
Gujarat Lions snapped up Kevin Pietersen for Rs 3.5 crore. The English cricketer was in the marquee pool of the players available for bidding at a base price of Rs 2 crore. Lions also lapped up Dwayne Smith at Rs 2.3 crore.
All teams put together have a purse of Rs 198 crore at their disposal in the auction of 351 players.The Gujarat Lions and Pune Super Giants went into the auction with Rs 27 crore after they spent Rs 39 crore in the IPL player draft which took place some months ago. Both Pune Super Giants and Gujarat Lions are the new teams in this year’s IPL after Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were banned for two years as a result of the 2013 betting and match fixing scam.
Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara (base price Rs 50 lakh) went unsold along with South African Hashim Amla in the first round. The surprise list of unsold players also included Australian George Bailey along with Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardena. Australian Michael Hussey and Usman Khwaja too remained unsold.
The swashbuckling batsmen and wicket keeper Sanju Samson was snapped up for Rs 4.2 crore by Delhi Daredevils.
BW Reporters
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