IPL 2011: Intelligent Business

IPL auction: Insight (day 2)

Boredom and surprise mark second day; no bids for over 100 players

The two-day IPL auction ended today with the little known Australian all-rounder Daniel Christian going for the highest price of $900,000 with Deccan Chargers bagging him by paying 18 times his base price.

While there was nothing remotely catholic about Saturday's bidding with franchises fighting it out furiously, today's proceedings were subdued as team owners had just about $19.5 million to splurge around.

The mood was so sombre that nobody bid for over a hundred players. But, like a Bollywood script that is boring in the first half but still delivers kicks towards the end, the IPL auction saw some end-game excitement that saw Mohammed Kaif being auctioned for a third time.

The big surprise on Day Two was that in spite of two rounds of re-auction, critics' favourite Saurav Ganguly's name did not come up. During the first round of re-auction, 28 players came up for rebidding but only 12 were picked up and for the second round, even out of this 12, eight saw no bidding – that is, they were snapped up at the base price.

Only one player, Mohammed Kaif, was put up for a third time at Pune's request and since none of the other franchises objected, ‘the re-re-auction', as the auctioneer put it, was permitted. Surprisingly, though Pune and Deccan Chargers bid for Kaif, he was finally bagged by Royal Challengers, Bangalore (RCB) for $130,000, 30 per cent more than his base price.

Thanks to this purchase, RCB's purse runs very low on funds, a point noted by franchise owner Mr Vijay Mallya at a press conference shortly after the bidding ended.

Now, RCB has just $360,000 left of the original $9 million cap for all teams.

Players who didn't make it include Sanath Jayasuria, Brian Lara and Chris Gayle, clearly showing that most foreign players had been discounted. The bids for uncapped players will open on Monday with a salary cap of Rs 32 lakh.

Youngsters preferred

There also seemed to be a strong preference for youngsters, a point made by Mr Mallya when asked why his team didn't bid for Rahul Dravid. He said that while he had every respect for this cricketer, RCB was committed to building a young team.

There was some drama while bidding for the under-rated Indian team medium pacer Vinay Kumar who finally went to Team Kochi for $475,000 which was nearly four times his base price. Royal Challengers made a valiant bid but couldn't retain him, something the franchisee's owner, Mr Mallya regretted later.

Mumbai Indians, which lost Zaheer Khan to RCB, managed to get Munaf Patel on its side for $700,000.

Pacer Umesh Yadav was bid for furiously and Delhi Daredevils were able to buy him for $750,000 though his base price was a low $50,000.