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Delhi stuns with Negi bid, Watson most expensive at IPL 2016 auction
Shane Watson, Yuvraj Singh, Pawan Negi, Yuvraj Singh and Chris Morris were the big gainers as over 350 players in the IPL auction went under the hammer on Saturday. Watson was the biggest earner as he was picked by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 9.5 crore. Negi was the highest-earning Indian, bought by Delhi Daredevils for Rs 8.5 crore.
Welcome to HT’s coverage of the Indian Premier League auction in Bangalore.
Highlights
Rising Pune Supergiants
The Gujarat Lions
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Delhi Daredevils
Mumbai Indians
Kolkata Knight Riders
Kings XI Punjab
This time, two new franchises - Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions - have replaced Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals at the bidding. Both franchises have five players each hence the onus will be on them to give shape to their squads as early as possible. The other six teams have already retained at least 13 cricketers so quality Indian players will come at a premium.
READ: New franchises face the heat this IPL auction, Yuvraj in focus
A quick gloss over the basic facts first. All squads can have a minimum of 16 players and a maximum of 27. No franchise can have more than nine foreigners in their squads. The ceiling of expenditure has been fixed at Rs 66 crore. After retention, release of players and trading, the teams left with the biggest purse are Delhi Daredevils (Rs 37.15 crore) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (Rs 30.15 crore). The new teams have Rs 27 crore each after they were allowed to pick five players in the December 15 draft. The two teams looking most settled are Mumbai Indians who have retained 19 players and KKR who have held on to 15.
351 players will be going under the hammer on Saturday. That includes 130 capped players, two players from Associate nations and 219 uncapped players. But if all franchises look to fill their quota only 116 players - including up to 36 overseas players - can be bought at this auction.
Among the top Indian players available are Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra, Ishant Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Stuart Binny, Sanju Samson and Dinesh Karthik. Perhaps his World T20 selection was the reason veteran Nehra was bumped up to the marquee players’ list on Friday night. Now there are three Indian marquee players --- Yuvraj, Ishant and Nehra, all with a base price of Rs 2 crore.
READ: All about IPL 2016 auction: Players, purse money, price tag
Apart from the three Indians, Kevin Pietersen, Shane Watson, Dale Steyn, Aaron Finch, Martin Guptill and Dwayne Smith are the other marquee players. There are 11 more foreigners within the Rs 1-2 crore bracket so all franchises have plenty of overseas options to pick from.
Among the Indians, Yuvraj is surely going to be a hot pick while Watson, Finch, Guptill, Jos Butler and Usman Khawaja - who had a great Big Bash league - could be among the top foreigners bought at the auction. An interesting aspect could be the bidding on the U-19 players like Rishabh Pant, Mahipal Lomror, Avesh Khan, Ishan Kishan and Mayank Dagar. They have potential no doubt but are the franchises willing to spend huge on them?
