IPL selection process more liberalised

Now that the dust has settled and money spent, it's time to step back and look at what unfolded in Jeddah.

- Amrit Mathur

Obviously, the IPL auction is about money; it is the players' Sensex where the dance of market forces decide who is worth what. With the rise and fall of the paddle, many luck out; for others, the luck runs out.

This time there were some amazing—perhaps bizarre—buys. Seriously, Venkatesh Iyer at ₹23.75 crore? Nobody, absolutely nobody, is worth that much. At that price you'd expect the player to win 4-5 games, but that never happens.

Deciding player price is a complex art, essentially an interplay of demand-supply plus desperation on the part of the buyer. LSG wanted Rishabh Pant badly, so they stretched and stretched their budget to pay the highest ever IPL salary.

Sometimes, it's an emotional call to stay with players who were with you in the past. CSK and MI are high on 'family,' but even with them the emotional card plays out in an uneven way. When Deepak Chahar moved to MI, his wife Jaya Bhardwaj thanked CSK for the wonderful years spent in yellow.

KKR bought back its core but rejected Nitish Rana. This snub provoked Nitish's wife to put out a post on social media dripping with acid: "Loyalty is expensive, not everyone can afford it."