IPL AUCTION TO BE CLOSED.....INDIAN PLAYERS TO BE MOST EXPENSIVE........RR SHOULD DISAPP........MI AND CSK TO SAFE........OTHERS FACE SOME DISAPP...........Unsung Aussie lands $900,000 IPL auction bid...............

Despite their heroics Down Under, the England players failed to make a big impact in the IPL 4 auction because of their high base price and uncertainty over their availability. Only seven English players found takers.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) owner Vijay Mallya, who had paid a record price of $1.55 million for Kevin Pietersen in 2009, pointed out why he did not bid for any of the English players in this auction.

“On an average, all the England players, I think, were overpriced. Had they been more aggressively priced in terms of their reserves, I think there would have been some bidding,” said Mallya.

“One dampener was the availability of the England players and clearly the preference, at least from my point of view, was to bid for players who will be 100 per cent available. So that’s one thing that I am sure influenced people while considering English players,” Mallya added.

Moreover, there was also uncertainty regarding the England players as the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had sent their No-objection Certificates (NoC) only on Saturday morning.

Kings XI Punjab co-owner Ness Wadia echoed Mallya’s views. “In any business, you need to know and you need to have clarity. It wasn’t a deterrent because we were not sure if they were coming totally or not.

“We got strategy A, B or C but it would have helped their own cause if they would have let us know their decision earlier and it would have helped some more English players,” said Wadia.

“Even though they have done really well, I would agree with Vijay that some of the base prices were probably high,” Wadia added.

Mallya also defended the $9 million cap, though after the two days of auction he is left with only $360,000 to buy uncapped players.

“The IPL fundamentally started with a $5 million cap and that was before the first auction. All those franchises at that time discussed the concept of a cap and unanimously agreed that a cap was essential to maintain a level playing field amongst all franchisees,” recalled Mallya.

“For 2011, various combinations and permutations were discussed amongst franchisees in the same room and it was then agreed that $9 million would be appropriate. We cannot disagree with the concept and the need for a level playing field. There was near unanimity and I certainly was happy with the outcome,” he reiterated.

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IPL-4 auction Day 1 in pictures




Bangalore: Little-known Australian Daniel Christian was the surprise highest earner at the final day of cricket's Indian Premier League auction on Sunday, bought for $900,000 by the Deccan Chargers. The all-rounder, who had a reserve price of $50,000, has played just three Twenty20 internationals but performed well recently in domestic games.

"He is worth the money. He is a good fast bowler and a decent batsman. He is also a brilliant fielder," said Gayatri Reddy, owner of the Chargers.

On Saturday, the first day of the auction, 15 players attracted bids of $1 million or more as team owners including business tycoons and Bollywood actresses competed to sign up players at the auction in Bangalore.

The highest price was for Indian left-handed opener Gautam Gambhir, who was snapped up by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for a record $2.4 million. He was joined in the $2 million club by compatriots Yusuf Pathan, Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma.

"I was expecting to get around $1.8 million, but I am thankful to all the teams who bid for me," Gambhir said. "I've always given my best shot while playing for Delhi (Daredevils) and I'll be at my best for KKR as well."

The annual IPL tournament revolutionised cricket when it burst on to the scene in 2008 with a high-octane blend of international star players, Twenty20 matches and celebrity glamour.

But it has endured a torrid year involving corruption and tax-dodging allegations, false ownership records, and claims of links with illegal gambling and the criminal underworld.

After IPL founder Lalit Modi was ousted over accusations about his conduct, organisers tried the clean up the event by expelling the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab for hiding ownership changes.

But the two teams won their legal battle to return, meaning ten sides will compete in the fourth edition of the IPL, which starts on April 8 - six days after the end of the World Cup, co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Former captains Brian Lara of the West Indies, Sanath Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka and Sourav Ganguly of India all remained unsold, as did England's Ashes heroes Ian Bell and Tim Bresnan, and Australia's Peter Siddle.

Twelve players were retained by their original franchises, with Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni staying with the Chennai Super Kings and Shane Warne and Shane Watson sticking with the Rajasthan Royals.

"We played smart during the auctions," said Stephen Fleming, former New Zealand captain who is now coach of the Super Kings, which retained four players before the auction. "We tried to get back same set of players who were with us in first three editions. The idea was to make the team strong for whatever price we need to spend."

The second-highest earner on Sunday was Indian paceman Umesh Yadav, who went to the Daredevils for $750,000. Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait, who has played three Tests, 25 one-dayers and 17 Twenty20 matches, went to the Rajasthan Royals at his reserve price of $300,000.

The players will receive their auction price annually for a three-year period, depending on how many games they play. All-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate will become the first Dutchman to figure in the IPL after being bought for $150,000 by the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The England duo of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff held the previous IPL auction record when they went for $1.55 million each in 2009. Flintoff has since retired and Pietersen was bought on Saturday by the Deccan Chargers for $650,000.

Video
Kochi happy with 11 players on day 1 of IPL 4 auction

The Indian Premier League (IPL 2011) auction) will take place on January 8 and 9 in Bangalore. The auction will start at 11 AM on saturday at the Mysore Hall of the ITC Royal Gardenia in Bangalore. 350 players will present in the mega auction. The fourth IPL will have 10 teams competing to buy from among the 353 players up for sale. For the two new teams, Sahara Pune Warriors and the Kochi franchise, this will be the first auction. There is a update of IPL auction 2011 till post lunch.

Team-wise

Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam GambhirGautam Gambhir , $2.4 million; Yusuf PathanYusuf Pathan, $2.1 million; Jacques KallisJacques Kallis, $1.1 million.

Pune: Robin UthappaRobin Uthappa, $2.1 million; Yuvraj SinghYuvraj Singh, $1.8million; Graeme SmithGraeme Smith, $500,000.

Mumbai Indians: Rohit SharmaRohit Sharma, $2 million; Andrew SymondsAndrew Symonds, $850,000.

Delhi Daredevils: Irfan PathanIrfan Pathan, $1.9 million.

Kochi: Mahela JayawardeneMahela Jayawardene, $1.5 million; V.V.S. Laxman, $400,000; Brendon McCullumBrendon McCullum, $475,000; S. Sreesanth, $900,000; R.P. Singh, $500,000.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: AB de Villiers, $1.1 million; Dilshan Tillakaratne, $650,000; Zaheer Khan, $900,000; Daniel Vettori, $550,000; Saurabh Tiwary, $1.6 million.

Deccan Chargers: Cameron White, $1.1 million; Kevin Pietersen, $650,000; Kumar Sangakkara, $700,000; J.P. Duminy, $300,000; Shikhar Dhawan, $300,000.

Rajasthan Royals: Ross Taylor, $1 million; Rahul Dravid, $500,000; Johan Botha, $950,000.

King’s XI Punjab: Adam Gilchrist, $900,000; Shaun Marsh, $400,000; David Hussey, King’s XI Punjab, $1.4 million.

Chennai Super Kings: Michael Hussey, $425,000;

Unsold players:

Sourav Ganguly, base price $400,000

Chris Gayle, base price $400,000

Jesse Ryder, base price $100,000

Herschelle Gibbs, base price $200,000


With most of the frontline cricketers bought over by the 10 franchises, the Indian Premier League (IPL) player auctions proved to be a drab affair on day two with Indian players making most of whatever money was left with the team owners.

Indian players continued to rule the roost as foreign and marginal players were ignored by the franchisees who had become stringent with their purses and selective in picking up the bench strength.

With a lion's share of the $ 9 million salary cap for each of the ten team managements spent on the opening day yesterday, only $ 19.5 million was left with the today.

Little-known New South Wales speedster Daniel Christian emerged as the costliest player on day two when he was bid for $ 9,00,000 by Deccan Chargers.

The team owner Gayatri Reddy insisted that he was worth the buy. Christian has played just three T-20 matches in his career so far but the 27-year-old can also bat well down the order.

"He is a fantastic bowler and is worth the money. He can also hit the ball hard while batting down the order," Ms Reddy said.

IPL management denied media reports stating that the auction was "fixed" as the teams had decided beforehand whom to pick.

"We Indians are known to speculate and this report is nothing more than that. The IPL auctions have been most transparent and no such thing is allowed to happen. It is an open auction and any team can bid for any player. There is no place for manipulation," IPL Commissioner Chirayu Amin said.

Meanwhile, at the auction, with most places taken in the ten IPL squads, medium-pacers were more in demand while most of the batsmen and all-rounders remained unsold.

Experienced speedsters Lakshmipathi Balaji fetched $ 5,00,000 as he was bought over by Kolkata Knight Riders, while Munaf Patel was taken for $ 7,00,000 by Delhi Daredevils.

Young Indian players continued to be in demand with Karnataka Ranji captain R Vinay Kumar being pouched by Team Kochi for $ 4,75,000 and his fellow pacer Abhimanyu Mithun was bought by Royal Challengers, Bangalore for $ 2,60,000.

Kumar will be the third frontline player from Karnataka who will not be playing for Royal Challengers, Bangalore. Rahul Dravid and Robin Uthappa, who played for liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s team last year, will now play for Rajasthan Royals and Team Pune, respectively, for the next two years.

Noted players who were ignored by the franchisees were former Sri Lankan captain Sanath Jayasurya, South African all-rounder Justine Kemp, English all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas, batsman Ravi Bopara, spinner Monty Panesar and Kiwi fast bowler Kyle Mills.

Four Ashes heroes went unsold in the high profile auction - Jimmy Anderson, Matt Prior and Graeme Swann yesterday and speedster Tim Bresnan today.

Amin said there was no controversy over so many English players having no takers.

There was some uncertainty over the English players being allowed in the auction as the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had delayed sending the no-objection certificate (NoC) clearing the players. However, the certificate came in time and all of them were included in the auction that began yesterday.

However, the question of availability of English players throughout the tournament was said to be the reason behind the IPL franchisees' reluctance to pick them, he said.

The opening day of the auction yesterday saw noted veterans like Sourav Ganguly, Brian Lara and Chris Gayle having no takers among the ten teams. On other hand, four Indians - Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Yusuf Pathan and Rohit Sharma - fetch above $ 2 million each.

In the two-day exercise, which ended today, as many as 354 players offered themselves to play for the expanded 10-team league, but only 127 were picked up while the remaining were "unsold".

The teams will add local players later. The 74-day tournament will begin on April 8 and end on May 28.

Following the teams including retained members:

Mumbai Indians: Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga (all retained), Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, Andrew Symonds, David Jacobs, James Franklin, Clint McKay, Moises Henriques and Aiden Bllzzard.

Rajasthan Royals: Shane Warne, Shane Watson (both retained), Rahul Dravid, Pankaj Singh, Ross Taylor, Johan Botha, Paul Collingwood and Shaun Tait.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (retained), Zaheer Khan, Saurabh Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mohammed Kaif, T Dilshan, A B De Viliers, Daniel Vettori, Dirk Nannes, Charl Langeveldt, Luke Pomersbach, Johan van der Wath, Rile Rossouw, Nuwan Pradeep and Jonathan Vandlar.

Team Kochi: V V S Laxman, S Sreesanth, R P Singh, Parthiv Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Ramesh Powar, R Vinay Kumar, Mahela Jayawardene, Brendon McCullum, Steven Smith, M Muralidharan, Brad Hodge, Tisara Perera, Stephen O'Keefe, Owais Shah, Michael Klinger and John Hastings.

Team Pune: Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik, Graeme Smith, Tim Paine, Agelo Mathews, Nathan McCullum, Callum Ferguson, Wayne Parnell, Mitchell Marsh, Jerome Taylor, Alfonson Thomas and Jesse Ryder.

Chennai Super Kings: M S Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Albie Morkel (all retained), Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, Joginder sharma, Sudeep Tyagi, Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo, Doug Bollinger, scott Styris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nuwan Kulasekara, Suraj Randiv, George Bailey and Francois Du Plessis.

Deccan Chargers: Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Manpreet Gony, Kevin Pietersen, Cameron White, Kumar Sangakkara, JP Duminy, Dale Steyn, Daniel Christian, Chris Lynn, Juan Theron and Michael Lumb.

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (retained), Irfan Pathan, Naman Ojha, Ajit Agarkar, Ashok Dinda, Umesh Yadav, Venugopal Rao, David Warner, James Hopes, Morne Morke l, Aaron Finch, Matthew Wade, Roelof van der Merve, Andrew McDonand, Travis Birt, Colin Ingram and Robert Frylinck.

King XI Punjab: Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Adam Gilchrist, Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Stuart Broad, Ryan Harris, Dimitri Mascarenhas and Nathan Rimmington.

Kolkara Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Manoj Tiwari, L Balaji, Jaidev Unadkat, Jacques Kallis, Brad Haddin, Shakib Al Hasasn, Brett Lee, Eoin Morgan, Ryan ten Doeschate and James Pattinson.