Overseas players are usually the flavour at the Indian Premier League (IPL) mini-auctions. The trend persisted in the 16th Player Auction on Friday. Top five costliest players - and seven of the 10 most expensive bids - were foreigners as the 10 franchises splurged a combined amount of Rs. 167 crore on 80 players.
As expected, the top three buys turned out to be the allrounder trio of Sam Curran (Rs. 18.50 crore, Punjab Kings), Cameron Green (Rs. 17.50 crore, Mumbai Indians) and Ben Stokes (Rs. 16.25 crore, Chennai Super Kings). In fact, all three of them attracted bids that were equal to or higher than the previous highest bid of Rs. 16.25 crore, attracted by Chris Morris for Rajasthan Royals in 2021.
While Harry Brook (Rs. 13.25 crore, Sunrisers Hyderabad) emerged as the first entrant in the nine-crore bracket in his maiden IPL Auction, Caribbean Nicholas Pooran walked away with a whopping sum (Rs. 16 crore, Lucknow Super Giants).
Mayank Agarwal (Rs. 8.25 crore, Sunrisers Hyderabad), the Punjab Kings’ captain in IPL 2022, attracted the highest bid for an Indian cricketer. Uncapped pacers Shivam Mavi (Rs. 6 crore, Gujarat Titans) and Mukesh Kumar (Delhi Capitals, Rs. 5.5 crore) were the other Indians in the top-10 buys.
The trend of overseas cricketers dominating the mini-auction was not surprising for many, though. “It is not surprising, it is to be expected. As long as this format continues, that is going to be the trend ,” said Venky Mysore, the Kolkata Knight Riders chief executive.
“Because the good Indian players are rarely released to a mini-auction, it is foreign players (who are sought-after). That imbalance will be there.”
While the price tags may have raised many eyebrows, it was business as usual in the auction room. In fact, a few franchises were expecting the Rs. 20-crore barrier to be breached for the first time.
“The history suggests that in smaller auctions, the prices can be significantly high. We saw that again. It is the supply-demand scenario,” said Mike Hesson, the Royal Challengers Bangalore Director of Cricket Operations.
“We knew Curran and Stokes would be well beyond our reach. We thought they would go close to Rs 20 crore. There is no surprise there. A few teams have freed up cash to have a go at them.”
Once the big birds ate into the riches, not too many Indians, especially uncapped domestic cricketers, had a windfall. Five domestic cricketers became crorepatis on the day. Besides Mavi and Mukesh, Jammu & Kashmir allrounder Vivrant Sharma (Rs. 2.6 crore, Sunrisers Hyderabad), Himachal Pradesh’s Mayank Dagar (1.8 crore, Sunrisers Hyderabad) and Andhra wicketkeeper-batter K.S. Bharat (1.2 crore, Gujarat Titans) also earned eight-digit amount.
