deciphering IPL Auction 6 - the naya crorepatis

In our younger games, we used to play a game called ‘Trade’, primarily a board game, where you roll dices, move your coin places, buy, sell, charge rent and do more...... there will be a banker and the players would be given equal amounts of cash [the paper / plastic  money for that game]; it is the same game marketed by Hasbro Co -as ‘Monopoly’.  If in your game you had local names of Cities, in Monopoly you would have International ones………. ~ and stretching your imagination you can substitute the name of places by Players ~ Cricket players ~ and you read about IPL auctions…..

This was a land where spin bowlers ruled the roost - Vinoo Mankad, Subash Gupte, Vaman Kumar, Bishan Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekar, Erapalli Ananda Sundaram Prasanna, Srinivasan Venkatraghavan, followed by Dilip Doshi, Shivlal Doshi ..... to Maninder Singh, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Anil Kumble and more............. there is no place for classical spinners in shortened formats, especially T20s or so one thought !!!!!!!!! ---- how wrong !!

For those following International Cricket, at Perth, Australia beat West Indies taking a 2-0 lead.  GJ Bailey made an unbeaten 125; taking Aussies to 266 from somewhat precarious 98/8, when Glenn Maxwell was out for a first ball duck to Darren Sammy….. he returned to take 4 wickets in 8 overs conceding 63 is another… not all would have heard of ‘Glenn James Maxwell’, an all rounder from Victoria, – the right hand bat and right arm off break bowler who has thus far played 9 ODIs and equivalent 9 T20s; with 56 being highest and a total of 4 ODI wickets

On the same day, he was most sought after in Chennai in IPL auction where 37 players were bought and  $11.89 million spent.  The IPL 2013 auction was supposed to be a relatively quiet one where settled franchises looked to fill in a couple of holes in their squads – IPL always creates buzz and it was so, in the auction too.

Now you have 2 teams from Chennai though technically one is Hyderabad franchisee.  CSK chose not to bid for any batsmen, but picked up 5 bowlers.  Dirk Nannes; South Africa's bowling allrounder Chris Morris for $625,000, an amount that was more than 31 times his base price;  Akila Dananjaya;  and another little known  Ben Laughlin ($20,000).  Delhi Daredevils had only $1.4 million left and 3 overseas players to be filled; half of their purse was for Jeevan Mendis and then Johan Botha and Jesse Ryder.   KKR perhaps buoyed by the success of Sunil Naraine, thought of pairing him with another spinner; so they bought Sri Lankan spinner Sachithra Senanayake, for $625,000.  Mumbai Indians have always been lavish in buying and this time it was Glenn Maxwell, who was the only millionaire in this auction, for whom they made the opening bid of $200,000. while Punter got a much lower price, it was sky high for Glenn Maxell.  Pune Warriors bought a potential captain in Michael Clarke at base price, spent a fortune for Abhishek Nayar, and splashed $700,000 on 21-year old fast bowler Kane Richardson, who's played one ODI for Australia.  The new team Sunrisers Hyderabad, who replaced Deccan Chargers had retained 20 of the old Chargers, and had slots open for 13 players (eight Indian, five overseas).  They bought  Thisara Perera ($675,000), Darren Sammy ($425,000), Sudeep Tyagi ($100,000), Nathan MCullum ($100,000), Quinton de Kock ($20,000), Clint McKay ($100,000)

Among the 37 players sold and bought - Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke got only their base price.  As usual there were many surprises and some bought at astronomical prices, which defied logic of a common man.  But the spender, Mumbai Indians expressed happiness at the buying of Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell for a whopping $1 million (Rs 5.3 crore); South African all-rounder Christopher Morris, struck gold by fetching $ 625,000 (Rs 3.3 crore). Sri Lankan off-spinner Sachithra Senanayake was touted to be a great offie with an unplayable doosra – has had no success in International level but  was  bought at a whopping 3.31  crore + .  Abhishek Nayar  managed just 45 runs in four games for Kings XI but had a fabulous domestic seaso scoring closer to 1000 runs; was most sought after and bought at close to 3.6 crores. 

The nine franchises spent a total of 64 crores on a single day !!. He is no longer a stranger ~ Auctioneer Richard Madley, roped in earlier by  Lalit Modis continues to stay put conducting the auction, which one feels may not require any technical expertise, when the buyers are so keen and adamant to buy at great prices.  TOI reports that he slipped  reading out the prices of players, as he kept saying pounds instead of dollars ; he didnt know Shilpa Shetty either…… as he kept referring  to her as the lady in black.  

Some names whom people thought would easily fit the T20 slog such as : Aaron Flinch; Martin Guptill, Darren Bravo, Herschelle Gibbs; Adam Voges; Matthew Wade, Ravi Bopara, Vernon Philander, Doug Bollinger; spinners Suraj Randiv, Veerasammy permaul, Devendra Bishoo, Herath, Sulieman Benn – all went unsold. 

IPL calculations may never be easily understood by commoners; George Bailey debuted and captained in a T20 against India, when we toured there……… much prior to that Bailey was part of Chennai Super Kings in IPL, though has not performed.  Here are the toppers and do you all of them

Player Name	Country	IPL	(USD)	Crores
Glenn Maxwell	Australia	MI	1000000	5.30
Ajantha Mendis	Sri Lanka	PW	725000	3.84
Kane Richardson	Australia	PW	700000	3.71
Abhishek Nayar	India	PW	675000	3.58
Thisara Perera	Sri Lanka	SH	675000	3.58
Chris Morris	South Africa	CSK	625000	3.31
Sachithra Senanayake	Sri Lanka	KKR	625000	3.31
Dirk Nannes	Australia	CSK	600000	3.18
Jaydev Unadkat	India	RCB	525000	2.78

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

4th Feb 2013.