IPL auction: 18 Indian & 53 overseas players up for sale today
A total of 18 Indian and 53 overseas players will be up for grabs on the second day of the Indian Premier League players' auction here on Sunday.
On the second day, the franchises will have a remaining cumulative salary cap of USD 19.5 million to be used both in the auction room and to sign uncapped Indian players after the day's proceedings.
This effectively means that a maximum of 71 players, if all franchises do take their full allocation of overseas players, will be up for sale in the second round of bidding at the ITC Gardenia hotel, according to a BCCI statement.
After the first day of bidding, five of the franchises have retained a total of 12 players (seven Indians and five overseas players) in advance of the auction. The total salary cap available across all the 10 franchises at the start of the day was USD 72.3 million.
During the day, 72 players were sold for a cumulative hammer price of USD 52.8 million. Of these, 30 were Indians and 42 overseas players, according to the BCCI release.
On the opening day, dashing India opener Gautam Gambhir became the costliest cricketer in the IPL by fetching a whopping USD 2.4 million (approx Rs 11.04 crore) as Indian players proved to be the biggest draw with three others going for more than USD two million.
In a high-profile auction, where Bollywood stars and corporate bigwigs were locked in a bidding war, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bought Gambhir for the mind-boggling sum, beating the previous high set by the English duo of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff (USD 1.55 million) last season.
KKR proved to be the big spender of the day by also buying hard-hitting all-rounders Yusuf Pathan (Rs 9.66 crore) and Jacques Kallis (Rs 5.06 crore) for the fourth edition of event to be held from April 8 to May 20.
Three other Indian players -- Yusuf (USD 2.1 million), Rohit Sharma (USD 2 million) and Robin Uthappa (2.1 million) also crossed the two million mark.
But there were some surprise names in the unsold list with former India and KKR captain Sourav Ganguly, West Indies batting star Chris Gayle and legendary Brian Lara failing to find a buyer.
In the fourth edition of the T20 league, each team will play seven matches at home, and seven away. Each side has nine opponents and will play five of those at home and away and will play two at home only, and will play the remaining two away only. This will produce a total of seventy league matches.
There will be one league table, as in previous years, and the top four teams at the end of the league stage will qualify for the play-off matches. There will be four play-off matches.
Which team plays which opponents (home and away/home only /away only) will be determined by a random draw that will take place on Sunday before the start of day two of the auction.
IPL auction: 18 Indian; 53 overseas players up for sale today
