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MUMBAI:
Australian all rounder James Hopes has bagged the largest
booty of $300,000 at the second round of players' auction
for the BCCI's Indian Premier League, with Ashwell Prince
getting the second highest price ($175,000) from Reliance’s
Mumbai Indians.
New
Zealand bowler Kyle Mills ($150,000) came a close third and
he, with Hopes would play for the
Mohali team, which has also gambled hard on an unknown batsman,
Luke Pomersbach, and paid $50,000 for him.
At
the auction there was no reserve price for these centrally
contracted players and bidding started at $ 50,000.
Jaipur
bagged Australian all rounder Shane Watson and Pakistan's
emerging talent Sohail Tanveer for $125,000 and $100,000 respectively.
Dimitri
Mascrenhas too was taken by Jaipur for $100,000. He is the
first English player to be contracted by the IPL.
The
Pink City also paid $60,000 for South African bowler Morne
Morkel.
Explosive
Pakistani batman Misbah Ul Haq went to Bangalore for $125,000.
Vijay
Mallya’s team bought the only Bangladeshi player to be
picked, Abdur Razzaq, for $50,000.
Kolkata,
which has exhausted most of its money, picked up just one
foreign player, Salman Bhutt for $100,000.
At
the auction the draft for the under 19 squad was also held.
The players signed get $30,000 for the year. If, however,
they have played in the Ranji Trophy, then they get $50,000.
The
transfer window next year is not applicable for these players.
A system, instead, will be devised by the BCCI in association
with the franchisees on how to move forward.
Bangalore
snapped up Virat Kohli, captain of the Under 19 team which
won the World Cup, as well as Srivatsa Goswami.
Mumbai
got Manish Pandey and Saurabh Tiwary. The IPL has also set
a minimum player fee of $ 20,000 for under 22 players.
BCCI
VP Lalit Modi says that the final announcement for the team
compositions will be made on 18 March.
As
of now Jaipur still has $1.4 million to spend while Mumbai
has a little over $53,000 left. Mohali and Kolkata have the
least at $2500 and $2000 respectively.
Each
franchise can spend a maximum of $5 million. They have all
spent the minimum of $3.3 million.
There
were no takers for Pakistani batsman Mohammad Yousuf and Yasir
Hameed.
Brad
Hodge as well as Tasmanian bowler Brett Geeves and New South
Wales batsman Phil Jaques too have not been picked so far.
The
franchisees can still buy players as long as they do not exceed
their quota of eight foreign players.
With
Australia scrapping their tour of Pakistan after twin blasts
rocked Lahore, it looks like the likes of Ricky Ponting and
Andrew Symonds will be seen in action at the IPL.
Modi
dismissed suggestions that the crowds would be hostile towards
Australian players on account of the controversies that took
place down under.
Modi
says that the event will be played under ICC rules. So the
rules regarding anti corruption and anti doping apply.
Also
Read:
IPL
auction ends; Dhoni top scores with $1.5 million
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