England all-rounder Ben Stokes has been snapped up by Mumbai Indians for Rs. 12.5 crore in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 auction held in Bengaluru. It is by the crore which the value of players who go under the hammer is measured, particularly the superstars fetching the big bucks. After some furious bidding, Preity and the Kings XI reps in the auction successfully won the auction war for Rs 5.2 crore, but Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) had the last laugh as they preferred playing the Right to Match (RTM) card.
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Kings XI Punjab sign Ravichandran Ashwin for Rs 7.6 cr.
From an original pool of 1122, there will be 578 cricketers up for auction; of these, 360 are Indian and the rest overseas players.
In first round of IPL auction of marquee players, the most hectic auction was for dynamic England allrounder Ben Stokes.
While England’s Test captain Joe Root remained unsold, Kunal Nair ended up getting sold at Rs 5.6 crore to Kings XI Punjab as Delhi refused to retain him.
Having directly retained three capped players already, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings can not use the RTM card for Harbhajan Singh and Ravichandran Ashwin, respectively.
India’s KL Rahul is second in the list.
Franchises have an option to release a player midway or give him leave during the tournament, which could give them flexibility if Stokes is absent because of the court case. The key unit of currency to watch out for is the crore, which equates to 10 million Indian rupees or about $200,000. Rising Pune Supergiant took everyone by surprise when they roped him in for a whopping Rs 14.5 crore a year ago.
Mumbai Indians won the IPL previous year and 2018 promises to be a gripping season.
Kolkata Knight Riders decided not to retain Pandey but the they did buy back Chris Lynn for a whopping Rs 9.6 crore from the auction.
With the 11th edition of the IPL Auction under way, let’s take a look at Right-to-Match cards, and how this intriguing concept is being tactically used by franchises.
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Meanwhile, former KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir went to his home franchise – DD – for Rs 2.8 crore. Then, CSK got back Faf du Plessis by matching KXIP’s Rs 1.6 crore. From mega-million purchases to world class cricketers going unsold, every IPL auction has been full of surprises. The Royals were inaugural IPL champions in 2008 under Australian hero Shane Watson, but were barred for two seasons with Chennai Super Kings in 2015 over a spot-fixing scandal.
