It was the day of the underdogs with some of them turning into instant crorepathis at the end of the last day of the Indian Premier League auction.
The biggest surprise of the day was when a little known player from a lesser known team, leg spinner Karn Sharma from the Railways was picked up by Sunrisers Hyderabad for ₹3.75 crore. It was also the highest amount paid for an uncapped player so far. New Zealend captain Brendon McCullum and Indian pace spearhead Zaheer Khan went for lesser amounts on Wednesday.
A stunned Karn Sharma who had listed his base price at ₹30 lakh later told a cricket website that he was watching the re-runs of his bidding on television channels as he still could not believe his luck.
The next big surprise was the all rounder from Himachal Pradesh, Rishi Dhawan, this season’s top wicket taker in the Ranji Trophy, who was bagged by Kings XI Punjab for ₹3 crore.
All the eight teams in the fray spent a total of ₹50.25 crore in picking up 84 players during Thursday’s bidding. The total amount of money spent during the two day auction was ₹262.5 crore out of ₹274.5 crore available to them. It was for the first time, all uncapped players were brought into the auction ring.
Maharashtra’s batsman Kedar Jadhav, the highest run getter in Ranji Trophy during the season, was picked up by Delhi Daredevils for ₹2 crore.
All teams bidOne of the highpoints of the auction was that almost all the teams were seen bidding for the players compared with Wednesday when two or three participated in the bids. This was because today’s bidding was more about picking up the right combination to form respective teams. On Wednesday, it was all about spending big bucks to buy star players and crowd pullers.
While picking up players, teams took into account their performance in the domestic competitions. Players such as KL Rahul and Karun Nair from Karnataka who brought the Ranji Tropy home with their exploits, richly deserved their price. Rahul was picked up by Sunrisers Hyderabad for ₹1 crore while Nair was bagged by Rajasthan Royals for ₹75 lakh.
Another promising cricketer, Aditya Tare was snared by Mumbai Indians for ₹1.6 crore. J&K sensation Parvez Rasool was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad for ₹95 lakh.
Among the overseas players, Ross Taylor, ignored so far, went for his base price of ₹2 crore and was bagged by the Delhi Daredevils. For Chris Lynn, the auction saw some frenzied bidding before Kolkata Knight Riders took the Australian for ₹1.3 crore.