IPL4 - The show has just began

The much awaited auctions for the players for the coming 3 editions of IPL took place this weekend. Live coverage on MAX shows its popularity and with Ad rates going up to three times to the normal add fees for the event has proved its critics wrong who thought that this would not be a mega event. Max has made crores of rupees to begin with.

More than 300 players including 48 Indian cricketers were on sale and at the end of the day We had many Carorpaties in their twenties without playing “Kaun Banega Carorepati”.  At the same time, there were some great names who were not considered fit or efficient enough to even at their base price. The game was played by 10 IPL team franchisees and with a $90 million in their kitty, They played it at their best. Different team owners had different approach towards the auctions. Defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) wanted to retained as many as players they can from their last composition and they were able to retain 9 out their 11 playing 11 that won last edition of IPL for them. They must be disappointed to lose out Murlidharan to team Kochi at a staggering 1.2million dollars BUT Murli must be having a last laugh with 5 crores in the kitty. On the other side teams like Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) were in the complete overhaul of their teams and the way they picked up the players it showed it. There were many who got confused about their approach and landed into a 50-50 situation. Team Kochi, Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils were in this category. Rajasthan Royals were the most unfortunate to have just 7 million dollars in their kitty and it impacted their selection of players.

Overall, Gautam Gambhir became the highest bid player with a auction price of 2.2 million dollars followed by Yusuf Pathan, Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma who also got couple of million dollars. The most surprising was Irfan Pathan who got 1.9 Million dollars, time will say if it was a wise decision. From the overseas players Sri Lankan stalwarts Muridharan, Jayawardhnae, Dilshan and Sangakara were among the top paid individuals. In the celebration of all the big money getters we must not forget that there were big names like Saurav Ganguly, Gale, Lara, Bouchar, Gibbs and Swann who were unsold. It shows that no matter how good you were at some point of your career, If you do not fit in the current scheme of things of these teams, You will not be considered.

If I look at the current team standings, CSK and Mumbai Indians are looking most formidable as they had retained all their 4 major players before the auctions. Team Pune has shown a lot of promise in picking up the players and they have a very good unit. RCB and KKR is also looking very good shape after the overhaul. Rest 5 have to make things happen and may be work harder than ever to make a presence felt in the coming season starting in Apr.

At last, No matter what happens to teams’ owners and their revenues and top and bottom lines, these players have become richer by leaps and bounds in last couple of days. I am sure even Umesh yadav (sold to DD for 950,000 dollars) would not have dreamt of having this money for himself, but this is what a auction can provide you. The calculations suggests that it will take another 3-4 years for most of team to reach the break-even and god forbid in case the event fails in between, there will be millions of dollars at stake. I hope and pray this would not happen in coming future. Looking forward to another extravaganza in Apr where we will have 10 teams fighting for the title of 4^th edition of IPL.