English trio Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan, Chris Woakes, former Australia fast bowler Mitchell Johnson are some of the star attractions in the upcoming auctions of the Indian Premier League.
All the aforementioned players are among seven players who have listed themselves in the highest base price bracket of Rs 2 crore (approx USD 298,000) for the auction of the lucrative league. India fast-bowler Ishant Sharma, Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews and Australian fast- bowler Pat Cummins are the rest of the players completing the list.
A total of 799 players will go under the hammer when the auction commences on February 20. The list consists of 160 capped players from eight countries except for Bangladesh and Pakistan and 639 uncapped players from five countries- India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and West Indies. The eight franchises have retained a total of 140 players and released 89 ahead of this IPL auction.
England’s wicketkeeper-batsman Johnny Bairstow, who had impressed during the India series, New Zealand fast bowler Trent Boult, Australia spinner Nathan Lyon and his compatriot Brad Haddin, South Africa’s Kyle Abbott and West Indies skipper Jason Holder have listed themselves in the base price bracket of Rs 1.5 crore.
Some other notable players present in the auction are England openers Alex Hales and Jason Roy (at INR 1 crore each), English pace duo Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan (INR 50 lakh each) and Pawan (at INR 30 Lakh).
Meanwhile, this will be the final year of IPL before the teams overhaul their squads for the 2018 season as the majority of the players will run out of their contracts after the conclusion of 2017 season. Consequently, most of them will go under the knife when the auction takes place next year.
Check out the full list of players with their base price in next pages: