The Hindu Business Line : What recession? Pietersen, Flintoff hit $1.55-m jackpot

Blasting initial apprehensions that recession may play spoil sport during Friday’s auction of players for the second innings of India Premier League T20 event beginning April 2009, the two English cricketers emerged as the most expensive players for IPL.

The Vijay Mallya owned Bangalore Royal Challengers and Chennai Super Kings did not bat an eyelid when they snapped up the two English cricketers for a mind-spinning $1.55 million each at the auction, held in a popular holiday resort in Goa.

They out-ran Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who was bought by the Chennai franchisee for $1.50 million last year when recessionary clouds were nowhere on the horizon.

In fact, sources close to Royal Challengers said Mr Vijay Mallya was willing to open up his entire auction purse of a little below $2 million to rope in Pietersen—the English batsman has an impressive average of 48.36 in the 87 ODIs he has played so far.

Allaying any possible impact of the global meltdown on the forthcoming event, Mr Lalit Modi, Chairman and Commissioner of IPL, said that the league had, in fact, decided to increase the budget by 25 per cent this season.

The eight franchisees, with a total auction purse of about $14 million, purchased 17 players out of a pool of about 50 international cricketers during the day-long, suspense-filled auction. With dollars flowing and Bollywood stars and industrialists matching the excitement of a cricket-crazy nation, any hint of recessionary winds was driven to the background at the auction venue.

Presence of Bollywood stars Priety Zinta, co-owner of Kings IX Punjab, Juhi Chawla, co-owner of Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders, and Shilpa Shetty, who recently bought a stake in Rajasthan Royals, added a dash of glamour to the event.

The auction threw up a surprise in the form of Bangladeshi bowler Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. The 25-year-old player from Jessore had many heads spinning at the auction when he attracted a price bid of $600,000, against his reserve price tag of $50,000. Mortaza, who has 103 wickets in his kitty from the 135 ODIs, was picked up by Knight Riders after the longest round of bidding in the auction. Knight Riders was pitched against Priety Zinta’s Punjab team for bagging Mortaza, who has now become the highest paid cricketer in Bangladesh.

Sources close to Knight Riders say that the strategy behind plumping for Mortaza was to broaden the catchment area of the franchisee to neighbouring Bangladesh.

The organisers had, earlier, decided to allow the franchisees to host their matches either in their venues or anywhere within their catchment areas.

Mortaza emerged as the fifth costliest player in today’s auction. After Pietersen and Flintoff, the third and fourth slots in terms of price tags were taken by South African cricketers J.P Duminy for $950,000 (reserve price of $300,000) and Tyron Henderson for $650,000 ($100,000). There was multiple bidding for Duminy, who was finally snapped up by Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai Indians, while Henderson went to Rajasthan Royals.

Mr Modi summed up the auction, saying that “this was a very strategic auction with each franchisee knowing exactly what they wanted in terms of international talent to strengthen their squads.”