It’s has been the day of surprises for many young players and equally the auction came as a shock for several internationals players who remained unsold during the 10th edition of Indian Premier League after the auction proceedings started with the familiar face of IPL’s auctioneer Richard Madley while holding the ‘famous’ golden hammer.
In the auction which also marked the first decade of the IPL, many cricketers have punched above their weight while drawing the attention of bidders to spill money on them.
Out of the total of 359 cricketers, 66 players were sold and 293 remained unsold, who had the hopes from the eight IPL bidding franchises during the event in Bengaluru.
Interestingly, several international players were overlooked which included South African Imran Tahir, who is also ICC’s number one Twenty20 bowler, Kyle Abbott, Irfan Pathan and Ishant Sharma, who was among the seven marquee players with the base price of two crore.
However, the lanky bowler Ishant remained unsold when his name was announced twice.
The 25-year-old speedster Thangarasu Natarajan from Tamil Nadu was bagged by Kings XI Punjab in 3 crore and Afghanistan’s rookie leg-spinner Rashid Khan was bagged by Sunrisers Hyderabad in four crore.
The 29-year-old all-rounder Karn Sharma became the India’s costliest buy in this auction after being bagged by Mumbai Indians in 3.2 crore. Sharma’s base price was INR 30 Lakh.
The 33 players were sold in the morning session of the auction with Ben Stokes topping the chart with the highest price tag of 14.5 crore for Rising Pune Supergiants during the IPL Players’ Auction 2017.
The fast-bowling sensation Tymal Mills struck gold when he was sold to Royal Challengers Bangalore for INR 12 crore as his base price was INR 50 Lakh.
Earlier, the list included 130 capped players and 229 uncapped players which include six players from Associate Nations. Only three were picked which included Chirag Suri (UAE), Mohammad Nabi and Rashid from Afghanistan.
The IPL has been the massive platform for the young pool of local cricketers to showcase their enormous talent since its inception in 2008 and it gave an opportunity to International cricketers – to spend some quality time in Asian conditions.
Earlier, the list also included three cricketers from Jammu and Kashmir as all-rounder Parvez Rasool, batsman Ian Dev Singh and promising fast-bowler Umer Nazir remained unsold during the auction.
Earlier this month, the original list of 799 players was trimmed down to 359 players which included 130 foreign players as the supply of a demand met under the one roof for the day with some minor errors taking place during the auction when auctioneer Richard Madley picked the wrong name from the bag before while making the statement by saying: ‘IPL has always remained in the spotlight’ while terming it (cash-rich league) has been involved in the ‘controversies’ in the recent past before the gathering in the hall burst into laughter.
There were many purses on the table in the auction which was dominated by the English players while having the lucrative contracts during the tenth edition.
Here’s the list of sold and unsold players: