IPL: BID-WAR

With 70 spots up for grabs, the IPL 2019 Player Auction was held at Jaipur, earlier this week. A capped fast bowler and an uncapped mystery spinner from the Tamil Nadu Premier League emerged as the joint-highest grossers in the bid. The eight franchises spent Rs 107 crore to buy 60 players at the 12th edition of IPL auctions. Unlike other seasons, this season saw many Indian players attracting a heated demand Several players even went unsold – middle-order batsman, Manoj Tiwary, being the first.

Jaydev Unadkat, who was bought for a whopping Rs 11.5 crore last season, yet again went for a high price of Rs 8.5 crore to Rajasthan Royals. Little-known Varun Chakravarthy had definitely caught the eye of franchises in the recently concluded Tamil Nadu league, with as many as five franchises bidding to secure him. He was seen bowling a number of variations that turned to be difficult for the batsmen to read, making heads turn as he went to Kings XI Punjab for an amassing Rs 8.5 crore – 42 times his base price.

English all-rounder Sam Curran generated a lot of discussion during India's last tour to England. The 19-year-old proved his mettle at crunch situations and played a defining role in England's win. He was picked by Kings XI Punjab at Rs 7.2 crore, given his ability to tonk the ball all over the park and also roll his arms as a frontline seamer.

A lot of players were released by the teams before the retention deadlines and many came back to take away their horses – indicating that the management of the franchises was up with some strategy and Indian players were definitely a part of the plan. There were a lot of surprises. Many prominent players like Corey Anderson, Jason Holder, Dan Christian, Dale Steyn and Chris Woakes didn't manage to find buyers, whereas many Indian domestic players created fresh excitement for the bidders.

Earlier, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had raised eyebrows after releasing Brendon McCullum. Touted as the next Hardik Pandya, all-rounder Shivam Dube triggered a bidding war before emerging as RCB's costliest buy at Rs 5 crore. Dube's buy was on the back of his two recent instances of hitting five consecutive sixes on two occasions – during the Mumbai T20 league and the Ranji Trophy match against Baroda. To further add fire-power, they bought hard-hitting Jamaican batsman, Shimron Hetmyer .

In the 2017-18 Cooch Behar Trophy, 19-year-old Prabhsimran Singh piled 547 runs donning the Punjab jersey. He had also scored 297 runs off 302 balls in a recently concluded U-23 tournament. Kings XI Punjab showed interest yet again on an Indian youngster and bought the local boy for a whopping Rs 4.8 crore. His cousin Anmolpreet Singh – the youngest cricketer to make his debut for the North Zone, was bought by Mumbai Indians for Rs 80 lakh.

Prayas Ray Barman, a teenager from West Bengal, had stormed into the senior side of the Vizay Hazare trophy earlier this year. The leggie impressed the selectors with a match-winning spell of 4-20 and an aggregate economy of 4.45. Bangalore fetched the spinner for Rs 1.5 crore. The franchise also went for Delhi top-order batsman, Himmat Singh. He was bought for Rs 65 lakh. All teams seemed more interested in buying Indian prospects while maintaining caution in spending their balance.

Kolkata Knight Riders had clear ideas and were content with the core-team lead by Dinesh Karthik. They had earlier roped in hard-hitting all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite and now has the likes of Karthik, Russel and Shubman Gill to add power to the middle-order. They went into a tussle for a young South African pacer, Anrich Nortje, who can continuously hit the 140-mark. Dale Steyn had said "Anrich really gets me excited. When he gets the likes of AB de Villiers to take two balls to have a look – and AB prides himself on not having a dot ball bowled to him, but he let two balls go through – he can be pretty proud of himself about that."

Delhi now has new owners and a new name. The name has been changed from Delhi Daredevils to Delhi Capitals after the GMR group took charge. To strengthen the middle-order, they opted for the experienced Collin Ingram (Rs 6.4 crore) and the all-rounder duo of Axar Patel (Rs 5 crore) and Hanuma Vihari (Rs 2 crore). They had also traded Shikhar Dhawan from Bangalore and now has a balanced batting unit with Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw and Shreyas Iyer consolidating the top. Delhi Capitals have also got hold of Ishant Sharma for a paltry amount of Rs 1.1 crore. In lieu of smart signings, the Delhi management went home with Rs 7.5 crore unspent.

Defending champions Chennai Super Kings were happy with just two players. As a replacement to pacer Mark Wood, they roped in Mohit Sharma alongside uncapped batsman Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Yuvraj Singh and Martin Guptill went unsold in the first round, only to be sold at the base price of Rs 1 crore to Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad. After the auction, Yuvraj said, "There was no disappointment as such because I had an idea that I would not be picked in the first round. The reason is obvious when you are putting together an IPL team, you will be looking at the youngsters. I am at that stage where it could be presumed that I may be in the last stages of my career. I had hoped that there would be a buyer for me in the last round." Later, Akash Ambani had called it the 'biggest steal' in auction history.

In the end, Riyan Parag from Assam was sold to Rajasthan Royals at a base price of Rs 20 lakh, as Hugh Edmeades, the bidder, called curtains to the bid this season. The 2019 edition of the IPL, which seems particularly promising for Indian players, will start on March 29 and run until May 19.