IPL Auction Day 1 Highlights: INR 27 crore man Pant, Shreyas and Venkatesh the headline makers on Day 1

IPL Auction LIVE: Punjab Kings have got a purse of ₹110.5 crore and that is because they were the only team to retain only uncapped players. Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh were the only players they chose to keep. Not even Arshdeep Singh was retained. Wonder if they have their eyes set on Rahul or Pant.

Full list of players not retained: Arshdeep Singh, Matthew Short, Jitesh Sharma, Sikandar Raza, Rishi Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Nathan Ellis, Sam Curran, Kagiso Rabada, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Harpreet Bhatia, Vidwath Kaverappa, Shivam Singh, Harshal Patel, Chris Woakes, Ashutosh Sharma, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Tanay Thyagarajann, Prince Choudhary, Rilee Rossouw.

IPL Auction LIVE: The Royals retained captain Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer and Sandeep Sharma.

Full list of players not retained by RR: Jos Buttler, Donovan Ferreira, Kunal Rathore, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Sen, Navdeep Saini, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Abid Mushtaq, Nandre Burger, Tanush Kotian, Keshav Maharaj, Prasidh Krishna, Adam Zampa.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: RCB have the second highest purse at ₹83 crore going into this auction. They retained Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar and Yash Dayal.

Full list of players not retained by RCB: Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Anuj Rawat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh, Saurav Chauhan

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Vaibhav Suryavanshi plays for Bihar and made his Ranji Trophy debut at the age of, wait for it, 12!!! A 12-year-old impressed his coaches so much that he was deemed deserving enough to play not one, but five first class matches. He hasn't really done much in them though, scoring just 100 runs in 10 innings but he was impressive in the India U19 team's four-dayers against a visiting Australian side in Chennai. In the first four-dayer at Chepauk, he clattered a 58-ball hundred. Suryavanshi also scored a triple-century in the Randhir Verma Under-19 ODI tournament played in Bihar.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: What were you doing when you were 13? Probably struggling to finish off your maths homework after a hard day of school and tuitions and not really doing anything of actual academic value in either. Well, Vaibhav Suryavanshi is rubbing shoulders with the likes of James Anderson, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and a plethora of other superstars in the IPL Auction list.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Well among the more unusual name in the auction this year is that of James Anderson, 42 years young. He pretty much admitted that he was made to retire by Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum against his wishes and now, well lo and behold! He is in the IPL auction. Anderson is an all time great. 704 Test wickets, an eye-watering 1126 first class wickets. And yet, he has just 41 scalps in the 44 T20s that he played, international or otherwise. His last T20 match was in August 2014 and his last T20I was all the way back in November 2009. And yet, if CSK go for him, it will be completely in line with how that franchise has operated. Heck they might even win the title with him bowling in a couple of matches. What a sight that would be.

IPL MegaAuction LIVE: The players who will be presented first are the ones from the two Marquee Sets consisting of six big-name players each. This will go on for about the first two hours today after which a number of capped players will go under the hammer. Unlike what will be the case with the marquee players, the sequence of this second larger set of capped players will be based on their specialistations - batters, all-rounders, wicketkeepers, fast-bowler and spinnners. This will be followed by uncapped players going under the hammer in the same sequence. 116 players are expected to be presented in all and the first day of the auction is expected to end after this process has been completed.

The second day is expected to be an accelarated auction. You see, while 574 players are technically in the final auction list, not all of them will actually go under the hammer. Franchises will be asked to nominated players, from the 117th one to the 574th and they will be presented in the first phase of the accelarated auction. The franchises then nominated some players out of those that have gone unsold in that first phase and maybe a few more of those who were not presented them between 117th and 574th players. They all go under the gavel in the second accelerated round.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: That is what most experts are saying, despite the fact that both players haven't really set the T20 world on fire. Take, for example, Aakash Chopra. "Rishabh Pant is going to get a lot of money. The amount could go to ?25 crore or even 30. The same is true for KL Rahul. Again a wicketkeeper-batter and scores 500-600 runs every year. Some people will cry over his strike rate. I saw a meme somewhere that he is more than 30 years old, married, and everyone is saying he is finished, so CSK might take him as such players go there," said Chopra on his YouTube channel.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: The RIght to Match card cannot be used by everyone. The franchises were allowed to retain a maximum of six players before this auction. Those who filled up that maximum retention limit cannot avail the RTM card today in the auction. KKR and RR are the only sides who retained six players ahead of this auction.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: The Right To Match (RTM) card was scrapped after the 2018 auction but it comes back with a tweak in this auction. Just to jog your memory the card can be used by teams to bring back the players they couldn't retain. If, for example, RCB successfully bid for a player who used to play for CSK last season, the latter can avail of the RTM card, allowing them to take the player back for the price at which RCB have bought him at the auction. This year, though, there is a tweak which wasn't there originally. Continuing with our example, RCB can raise their winning bid if they still want the player and in that case, CSK will have to win the ensuing bidding war with them.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: The stars are going under the hammer and there are few that shine brighter than Rishabh Pant. In Test cricket. Not so much yet in T20 cricket and he has been playing for a while. And yet, it won't be a surprise if he becomes the most expensive buy of an IPL Auction today, with Punjab Kings expected to break the bank for him. The record, you may recall, is currently being held by Mitchell Starc who was bought for ₹24.75 crore by KKR last season, only to be released right back into the market before the start of this season. That's life in the IPL.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Several big stars are going under the hammer today and the biggest of them all will go first. 12 players have been identified and they have been divided into two Marquee Sets of six each. These are the sets that will go under the hammer first today and they are expected to be auctioned off until around 5.30pm IST.

Set 1 consists of Jos Buttler, Shreyas Iyer, Kagiso Rabada, Rishabh Pant, Arshdeep Singh, and Mitchell Starc. KL Rahul, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Liam Livingstone, and David Miller are in Set 2. All of them have their base prices set at Rs. 2 crore.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: The auction starts at 3.30pm IST today, 12pm local time. This is just the second time that the event is taking place outside India. Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital Riyadh, is the host city for the auction this year, making it the first time anything related to the IPL has been held in the country and just the second time it has been held outside India. The venue for the auction itself is the Abadi Al Johar Arena. Named after an iconic Saudi singer, the venue has hosted a number of musical concerts since it was inaugurated in July this year. Constructed in just 79 days, the arena has a capacity of 5,000 seats and more than 10,000 standing audience.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Among the peculiarities that came up before the retention deadline day was the BCCI bringing back the rule which said that capped players who haven't played for an international side for five consecutive years can be deemed as being uncapped again. Why bring it back? Well it would help teams retain a few senior players for the cost of an uncapped player, most prominently, MS Dhoni. In fact it is a bit of an open secret that this happened exclusively so Dhoni will continue playing in the IPL for CSK for just a few more years. Moreover, a franchise-based league introducing a rule with the view of keeping a player around for a few years more is not without precedent.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Each franchise started out with an initial purse of ₹120 crore for the auction. This is an increase of 20 per cent from last year. However, teams had to take money out from this purse itself to retain their players which means quite a few of them have had significant chunks of out it slashed out already going into the auction. Out of the 10 teams, five have already spent more than half of their starting purse. These are Rajasthan Royals ( ₹41 crore), Sunrisers Hyderabad ( ₹45 cr), Mumbai Indians ( ₹45 cr), Kolkata Knight Riders ( ₹51 cr) and Chennai Super Kings ( ₹55 cr). Punjab Kings ( ₹110.5 cr) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru ( ₹83 crore) have the biggest purses going into the auction.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Before the auction, came the retention. Here's the full list of retained and released players by all 10 IPL franchises ahead of mega auction

Mumbai Indians

5 players retained:

Jasprit Bumrah: INR18 crore

Suryakumar Yadav: INR 16.35 crore

Hardik Pandya: INR16.35 crore

Rohit Sharma: INR 16.30 crore

Tilak Varma: INR 8 crore

Purse remaining: INR 55 crore (out of INR 120 crore)

RTM options at auction: 1

Players eligible for RTM: One uncapped player

Full list of players not retained: Dewald Brevis, Ishan Kishan, Tim David, Harvik Desai, Arjun Tendulkar, Shams Mulani, Nehal Wadhera, Kumar Kartikeya, Piyush Chawla, Akash Madhwal, Luke Wood, Romario Shepherd, Gerald Coetzee, Shreyas Gopal, Nuwan Thushara, Naman Dhir, Anshul Kamboj, Mohammad Nabi, Shivalik Sharma, Kwena Maphaka

Chennai Super Kings

5 players retained:

Ruturaj Gaikwad: INR 18 crore

Matheesha Pathirana: INR 13 crore

Shivam Dube: INR 12 crore

Ravindra Jadeja: INR 18 crore

MS Dhoni: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 55 crore

RTM options at auction: One player

Full list of players not retained: Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman, Richard Gleeson, Avanish Rao Aravelly, Devon Conway

Royal Challengers Bangalore

3 players retained:

Virat Kohli: INR 21 crore

Rajat Patidar: INR 11 crore

Yash Dayal: INR 5 crore

Purse remaining: INR 83 crore

RTM options at auction: Three players

Full list of players not retained: Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Anuj Rawat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh, Saurav Chauhan

Delhi Capitals

4 players retained:

Axar Patel: INR 16.5 crore

Kuldeep Yadav: INR 13.25 crore

Tristan Stubbs: INR 10 crore

Abhishek Porel: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 73 crore

RTM options at auction: Two players

Full list of players not retained: Rishabh Pant, Pravin Dubey, David Warner, Vicky Ostwal, Prithvi Shaw, Anrich Nortje, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Lalit Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Mitchell Marsh, Ishant Sharma, Yash Dhull, Mukesh Kumar, Ricky Bhui, Kumar Kushagra, Gulbadin Naib, Rasikh Dar, Jhye Richardson, Sumit Kumar, Shai Hope, Swastik Chhikara, Lizaad Williams, Harry Brook, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Marsh.

Kolkata Knight Riders

6 players retained:

Rinku Singh: INR 13 crore

Varun Chakaravarthy: INR 12 crore

Sunil Narine: INR 12 crore

Andre Russell: INR 12 crore

Harshit Rana: INR 4 crore

Ramandeep Singh: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 51 crore

RTM options at auction: None

Full list of players not retained: Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Phil Salt, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Vaibhav Arora, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Allah Ghazanfar, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Jason Roy, Gus Atkinson, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

Lucknow Super Giants

5 players retained:

Nicholas Pooran: INR 21 crore

Ravi Bishnoi: INR 11 crore

Mayank Yadav: INR 11 crore

Mohsin Khan: INR 4 crore

Ayush Badoni: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 69 crore

RTM options at auctions: One player

Full list of players not retained: KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Devdutt Padikkal, Naveen-ul-Haq, Krunal Pandya, Yudhvir Singh, Prerak Mankad, Yash Thakur, Amit Mishra, Shamar Joseph, K. Gowtham, Arshin Kulkarni, M. Siddharth, Ashton Turner, Matt Henry, Mohd. Arshad Khan, Mark Wood, David Willey, Shivam Mavi.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

5 players retained:

Pat Cummins: INR 18 crore

Abhishek Sharma: INR 14 crore

Nitiesh Reddy: INR 6 crore

Heinrich Klaasen: INR 23 crore

Travis Head: INR 14 crore

Purse remaining: INR 45 crore

RTM options at auction: One uncapped player

Full list of players not retained: Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan, Wanindu Hasaranga.

Gujarat Titans

5 players retained:

Rashid Khan: INR 18 crore

Shubman Gill: INR 16.5 crore

Sai Sudharsan: INR 8.5 crore

Rahul Tewatia: INR 4 crore

Shahrukh Khan: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 69 crore

RTM options at auction: One player

Full list of players not retained: David Miller, Matthew Wade, Wriddhiman Saha, Kane Williamson, Abhinav Manohar, Darshan Nalkande, Vijay Shankar, Jayant Yadav, Noor Ahmad, Sai Kishore, Joshua Little, Mohit Sharma, Azmatullah Omarzai, Umesh Yadav, Gurnoor Brar, Kartik Tyagi, Manav Suthar, Spencer Johnson, Sandeep Warrier, BR Sharath, Mohammed Shami, Robin Minz, Sushant Mishra.

Punjab Kings

2 players retained:

Shashank Singh: INR 5.5 crore

Prabhsimran Singh: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 110.5 crore

RTM options at auction: Four players

Full list of players not retained: Arshdeep Singh, Matthew Short, Jitesh Sharma, Sikandar Raza, Rishi Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Nathan Ellis, Sam Curran, Kagiso Rabada, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Harpreet Bhatia, Vidwath Kaverappa, Shivam Singh, Harshal Patel, Chris Woakes, Ashutosh Sharma, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Tanay Thyagarajann, Prince Choudhary, Rilee Rossouw.

Rajasthan Royals

6 players retained:

Sanju Samson: INR 18 crore

Yashasvi Jaiswal: INR 18 crore

Riyan Parag: INR 14 crore

Dhruv Jurel: INR 14 crore

Shimron Hetmyer: INR 11 crore

Sandeep Sharma: INR 4 crore

Purse remaining: INR 41 crore

RTM options at auction: None

Full list of players not retained: Jos Buttler, Donovan Ferreira, Kunal Rathore, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Sen, Navdeep Saini, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Abid Mushtaq, Nandre Burger, Tanush Kotian, Keshav Maharaj, Prasidh Krishna, Adam Zampa.

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Punjab Kings retained just two players, both of them uncapped, and so they go in with the highest remaining purse, as they often do. They do love to hit the reset button time and again. RR have the least. Here is the full list of remaining purses for all the franchises.

Punjab Kings - ₹110.5 crore

Royal Challengers Bengaluru - ₹83 crore

Delhi Capitals - ₹73 crore

Gujarat Titans - ₹69 crore

Lucknow Super Giants - ₹69 crore

Chennai Super Kings - ₹55 crore

Kolkata Knight Riders - ₹51 crore

Mumbai Indians - ₹45 crore

Sunrisers Hyderabad - ₹45 crore

Rajasthan Royals - ₹41 crore

IPL Mega Auction LIVE: Take your seats and dust off your paddles; make sure the person tasked with raising it has a fast arm but not a trigger-happy one. It is the IPL Auction! Moreover, it is a mega-auction this year!

Over the next two days, players will be showered with amounts so huge that they could buy you your favourite sports car or, in the case of the bigger bids, a decent 2bhk flat in Mumbai. Many people who don't deserve too many riches end up fattening their pockets through this sport, but the players are its lifeblood. It is good to see them being showered with the moolah for once.

There are lots of eyes on records and what not but at the end of the day, the best result of this auction would be to see a relatively unknown player suddenly earn the kind of money they probably never dared to dream of, which gives them the chance to focus solely on the sport they love to play. Let's hope we get to see a lot of that. Stay tuned for more updates!