IPL conducted first round of players auction. Around 80 players including foriegn players went under the hammer. All the eight franchises vied to get top players. The highest bid was for Dhoni, $1.5 million, bought by India Cements. The second highest bid was for Andrew Symonds, bought by Deccan Chronicle for $1.35 million. After nine rounds of bidding for the players, all the eight franchisees of the IPL team together have put in a total of about $36 million to select squad of 16 players each, which will be slugging it out during 59 Twenty20 matches spread over 44 days, beginning April 18. The contract is not a binding one, since the players can be swapped or transferred to another team next year, based on a transfer price. Each of the eight franchisees had a total purse of up to $5 million to make their bids.
Players were divided into eight categories, from A to H. The A to D category players are the marquee players, who will be auctioned first and will cost the most as well. This list includes the likes of MS Dhoni, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Harbhajan Singh.
Iconic players Sachin Tendulkar (Mumbai), Sourav Ganguly (Kolkata), Rahul Dravid (Bangalore) and Yuvraj Singh (Mohali) raked in more than a million dollar each as they will get 15 per cent more than the highest bid player of their respective teams. The iconic player of GMR-owned Delhi, Virender Sehwag, will get a little less than one million dollars as the highest bid player of his team, Gautam Gambhir, was priced at $725,000.
Some Rules:
Each player has an annual base player fee. This base player fee assumes that the player is available for the entire season of the IPL season including, if applicable, the Champions League (expected to happen in October).
This fee will be adjusted on a pro-rata basis, depending on the availability of players in the first year. The IPL Governing Council has decided that not more than $5 million and not less than $3.3 million can be bid for each lot of international players by each franchise, to ensure a level playing field in the tournament.
Each franchise would have to buy sixteen players at the minimum, out of which four should be from India and under the age of 22 and four other local players hailing from catchment areas earmarked by the IPL for each of the eight franchises.
The player fees of any icon player - being 15 per cent of the highest player fee in that franchise's squad - will count towards the upper limit.
The cap placed on bids for a pool of international players by each franchise does not include the local (apart from the iconic player) and under 22 players whose minimum salary has been fixed as $20,000.
For the Ranji and other auction players the base price has been fixed as $50,000 per year.
The contract with the player will be for a fixed term of three years.
Each franchise can have a maximum of two centrally contracted Australian players in its squad and/or a maximum of two Australian players from each state association in its squad, as per the agreement arrived at between Cricket Australia and IPL.
The biddings:Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind) 1.5 million Chennai
Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) 600,000 Chennai
Matthew Hayden (Aus) 375,000 ChennaiJacob Oram (NZ) 675,000 Chennai
Stephen Fleming (NZ) 333,000 Chennai
Joginder Sharma (Ind) 225,000 Chennai
Parthiv Patel (Ind) 325,000 Chennai
Albie Morkel (SA) 650,000 Chennai
Adam Gilchrist (Aus) 700,000 Hyderabad
Andrew Symonds (Aus) 1.35 million Hyderabad
Herschelle Gibbs (SA) 575,000 Hyderabad
Shahid Afridi (Pak) 675,000 Hyderabad
Scott Styris (NZ) 175,000 Hyderabad
Yousuf Pathan (Ind) 475,000 Jaipur
Shane Warne (Aus) 450,000 Jaipur
Graeme Smith (SA) 475,000 Jaipur
Mohammed Younis (Pak) 225,000 Jaipur
Kamran Akmal (Pak) 150,000 Jaipur
Mahela Jayawardene (SL) 475,000 Mohali
Kumar Sangakkara (SL) 700,000 Mohali
Sreesath (Ind) 625,000 Mohali
Irfan Pathan (Ind) 925,000 Mohali
Brett Lee (Aus) 900,000 Mohali
Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) 425,000 Kolkata
Ricky Ponting (Aus) 400,000 Kolkata
Chris Gayle (WI) 800,000 Kolkata
Ajit Agarkar (Ind) 350,000 Kolkata
Brendon McCullum (NZ) 700,000 Kolkata
Shaun Pollock (SA) 550,000 Mumbai
Harbhajan Singh (Ind) 850,000 Mumbai
Sanath Jayasuriya (SL) 975,000 Mumbai
Shoaib Malik (Pak) 500,000 Delhi
Mohammed Asif (Pak) 650,000 Delhi
Farveez Maharoof (SL) 225,000 Delhi
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL) 250,000 Delhi
Dinesh Karthik (Ind) 525,000 Delhi
Daniel Vettori (NZ) 625,000 Delhi
Jacques Kallis (SA) 900,000 Bangalore
Zaheer Khan (Ind) 400,000 Bangalore
Anil Kumble (Ind) 500,000 Bangalore
Cameroon White (Aus) 500,000 Bangalore
Mark Boucher (SA) 450,000 Bangalore
Source: India Today, The Hindu and NDTV
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