IPL 2017 Auction Winners, Losers And In-Betweens

Stokes base price was Rupees 2 crores. But Rising Pune Super Giants bought him for more than seven times that amount. He commanded Rupees 14.5 crores...

- Niji NG

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to start on April 5. There are indeed rumours about the state cricket associations’ secret plans to torpedo the mega event – ostensibly to teach the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators a lesson or two. However, the IPL is likely to go on as planned. The auction process for this year’s IPL was as resounding success. There had been some rumours regarding the auction as well. Still the auction took place with all the glitz, drama and, of course, a lot of money. If you missed the auction gala, don’t worry. Here is the gist of what happened during the whole auction drama.

For convenience, we have divided the players participated in the auction to four categories: 1. The sought after boys; 2. Bargain buys; 3. Hidden gems; and 4. Touch-me-nots. The sought-after boys refers to the most expensive players in this year’s auction. The bargain buys refers to the set of players who were sold in the auction for much lower price than they deserved. Hidden gems pin-points on the unknown players who struck gold in the IPL auction. And the Touch-me-nots list those unfortunate players who went unnoticed despite having high potential in the T-20 format.

Here we go then.

THE SOUGHT-AFTER BOYS