Mumbai, January 19: IPL3 action began on Tuesday with a big surprise right away when Pak star player Shahid Afridi found no bidders. West Indies allrounder Kieron Pollard was the star attraction with the bidding going into a tie-breaker. Pollard was finally bagged by Mumbai Indians for an undisclosed amount.
South African allrounder Wayne Parnell who played in the last Under-19 World Cup was bagged by Delhi Daredevils for $610,000.
Australian Brad Haddin and England’s Graeme Swann were unsold in round 1. There are 67 cricketers who would be going under the hammer today.
Each franchise will have a maximum of only $750,000 at its disposal for buying new players, who will be contracted only for the 2010 season.
Former Indian Cricket League player and New Zealand seamer Shane bond went for a whopping USD 750,000 to Kolkata Knight Riders after the second tie-breaker of the auction was announced for a total of two minutes between KKR and DC.
He had the base price of USD 100,000, the least among all the other players.
The second highest bid of Group B went to West Indies bowler Kemar Roach for USD 720,000 to Deccan Chargers. The last player of the group, England bowler Eoin Morgan, was sold to Royal Challengers Bangalore
for USD 220,000.
India’s lone player in the auction, Mohammad Kaif, was sadly not picked up by any franchisee.
The second group’s bidding began with the auctioning of Wayne Parnell, who went to Delhi Daredevils for USD 610,000 (base price USD 200,000).
Three out of four players in the first group were unsold in the form of England’s Graeme Swann, Australia’s Brad Haddin and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi.
The fourth player, Keiron Pollard, on the other hand, caused the first tie-breaker of the auction. It was between Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, KKR and Chennai Super Kings.
The player was sold at USD 750,000 to Mumbai Indians. The breaker was after a fierce bidding by the four franchisees, who clearly did not want to bank on the Pakistan players, due to the tensions between the ties of the neighboring nations.
Afridi’s base price was USD 250,000.
–Agencies