The pacers’ pack earned the big bucks on the second and the last day of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Player Auction as the franchises struggled to shape up their squads for the 2025 edition.
Of the 110 players sold on Monday for a combined total of Rs. 175.20 crore at the Al Johar Abadi Arena, one-fourth were splurged on seven pace bowlers combined whose names were called in the fourth set of the afternoon.
Veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Rs. 10.75 crore, RCB) earned the fattest paycheck of the day from the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Once Mumbai Indians lost out on Bhuvneshwar, it broke the bank for Deepak Chahar (Rs. 9.25) and the Lucknow Super Giants went big on Akash Deep (Rs. 8 crore). Punjab Kings chased Mukesh Kumar and even escalated the bid from Rs. 6.50 crore to Rs. 8 crore once Delhi Capitals employed the Right to Match (RTM) option but DC matched the bid.
The Chennai Super Kings, meanwhile, had a relatively quiet beginning to the start, having managed to welcome allrounder Sam Curran (Rs. 2.40 crore) back into its stable. Later in the day, CSK went big on the Indian pace duo of Anshul Kamboj (Rs. 3.40 crore) and Tamil Nadu’s Gurjapneet Kaur (Rs. 2.20 crore) to boost its pace battery. The Super Kings signed off with a near-perfect auction, filling its maximum allotted quota of 25 players with only Rs. five lakh remaining in its purse.
CSK signed seven overseas players, one less than the maximum allowed. In fact, only four teams – Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, Punjab Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru – signed eight overseas cricketers.
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As expected, Punjab Kings – who came into the auction with a whopping purse of Rs. 110.50 crore – spent the maximum amount over the two days. The Ricky Ponting-coached PBKS spent 110.15 crore.
At the start of the day, Sunrisers Hyderabad appeared to have been struggling to spend big on players with a tight purse but still managed to add strong domestic backups.
Surprisingly, Shardul Thakur, Mayank Agarwal, and Prithvi Shaw remained unsold as all the franchises turned their backs on the trio. Sarfaraz Khan, too, remained unsold for the second auction in succession.
Sarfaraz’s younger brother, Musheer, though, was signed at base price by Punjab Kings.
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