IPL Auction Wrap: Rs 140 Cr Spent on 62 Players; Who Got It Right?

The complete wrap of the 2020 IPL auction. Who bought best? Who bought wisest and who made big money?

(Photo: The Quint)

Rs 1,40, 30,00,000 was spent by the 8 IPL franchises on Thursday in Kolkata at the 2020 IPL auction with a total of 62 players finding new IPL teams.

29 overseas players got big paydays with Pat Cummins also becoming the most expensive foreign player in the league’s history after he was bought by KKR for Rs 15.50 crore. Among Indians, spinner Piyush Chawla turned out to be the most expensive player, costing MS Dhoni’s already spin-heavy CSK Rs 6.75 crore.

So, which team got it right and which team didn't utilise their funds properly? Here’s a wrap.

Chennai Super Kings

• Amount spent : Rs 14.45 crore
• Players bought: Piyush Chawla (Indian leg-spinner) Rs 6.75 crore, Sam Curran (England All-rounder) Rs 5.50 crore, Josh Hazlewood (Australia fast bowler) Rs 2 crore, R Sai Kishore (Indian left-arm spinner) Rs 20 lakh

Chennai Super Kings were already sorted as far as their squad was concerned going into the auction. Retaining as many as 20 players meant that the core of the side was intact.

As expected, after laying dormant for the first few sets, CSK suddenly sprung into action once the fast bowlers’ pool was announced. They were quick to pick up English pacer Sam Curran as their first purchase of the auction, bagging the all-rounder for Rs 5.50 crore from a base price of Rs 1 crore.

Piyush Chawla, who was released by Kolkata Knight Riders coming into the auction, was in for a surprise when CSK aggressively bid for the wrist spinner. Eventually, he was picked by the Chennai outfit for Rs 6.75 crore – making him not only their most expensive player of the day but also the most expensive Indian at the auction.

From Chennai’s perspective the purchase made little sense, who already have the likes of Imran Tahir and Harbhajan Singh, but later CSK coach Stephen Fleming said that Chawla has had great relation with skipper MS Dhoni, which still didn’t make sense.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

• Amount Spent: Rs 21.5 crore
• Players bought: Chris Morris (SA all-rounder) Rs 10 crore, Aaron Finch (Australia batsman) Rs 4.40 crore, Kane Richardson (Australia pacer) Rs 4 crore, Dale Steyn (SA pacer) Rs 2 crore, Isuru Udana (SL pacer) Rs 50 lakh, Shahbaz Ahmed (Indian all-rounder) Rs 20 lakh, Joshua Philip (Australia wk) Rs 20 lakh, Pavan Deshpande (Indian batsman) Rs 20 lakh

Virat Kohli’s RCB came into the auction needing to buy the most players but apart from their bargain buy of Aussie T20 skipper Aaron Finch (Rs 4.40 crore), the franchise mostly either looked to be making some panic buys or overspending on the one big all-rounder they have bought in Chris Morris.

Morris, for an all-rounder, scored all of 32 runs in the 2019 IPL with Delhi Capitals and picked up a total of 13 wickets in his 9 outings, leading to his release from the Delhi franchise in the off season. To have spent Rs 10 crore on him, is either part of a much bigger plan or a punt that could go very wrong.

Specially considering the team now have only a 21-member squad, having spent almost have their auction purse on Morris and Finch alone.

In the last lot of the auction, when the unsold players were brought back, RCB picked up Kane Richardson and once again, Dale Steyn. Steyn had joined the franchise as in injury replacement last season before getting injured himself and returning to South Africa. However, since, he has retired from Test cricket and with a focus on limited-overs cricket, he could be a big asset to the team, if he manages to play out an entire season

Delhi Capitals

• Amount Spent: Rs 18.85 crore
• Players bought: Shimron Hetmyer (WI Batsman) Rs 7.75 crore, Marcus Stoinis (Australia All-Rounder) Rs 4.80 crore, Alex Carey (Australia WK) Rs 2.40 crore, Jason Roy (England batsman) Rs 1.50 crore, Chris Woakes (England All-Rounder) Rs 1,50 crore, Mohit Sharma (Indian medium pacer) Rs 50 lakh, Tushar Deshpande (Indian fast bowler) Rs 20 lakh, Lalit Yadav (Indian All-Rounder) Rs 20 lakh

Delhi Capitals were in the surprisingly comfortable position of coming into the action with a large salary purse and also with their core team already in place. Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Kagiso Rabada were players they’d invested in some years back and they go into the upcoming auction as India regulars. Add to that the experience of Shikhar Dhawan, R Ashwin and Ajinkya Rahane that’s a long list of Team India players Ricky Ponting has lined up.

So, obviously, it was going to be the overseas players’ spots that DC were looking to fill up with their auction purse and they in fact may just have got some of the biggest steals of the day. World Cup-winning duo of Jason Roy and Chris Woakes were bought for their base price of Rs 1.50 crore each while Shimron Hetmyer was their most expensive buy at Rs 7.75 crores. Australian wicket-keeper batsman Alex Carey was added to the squad for Rs 2.4 crores.

"We were pleasantly surprised to get Chris Woakes and Jason Roy for Rs 1.5 crores each, and then getting a player like Shimron Hetmyer was the icing on the cake. We also managed to get Alex Carey, who is a really exciting prospect for us,” said Team co-owner Parth Jindal after the auction.

Kolkata Knight Riders

• Amount Spent: Rs 27.15 crore
• Players bought: Pat Cummins (Australia pacer) Rs 15.50 crore, Eoin Morgan (England Batsman) Rs 5.25 crore, Varun Chakaravarthy (Indian spinner) Rs 4 crore, Tom Banton (England batsman) Rs 1 crore, Rahul Tripathi (Indian batsman) Rs 60 lakh, Chris Green (Australia All-Rounder) Rs 20 lakh, Nikhil Naik (Indian WK) Rs 20 lakh, Pravin Tambe (Indian leg-spinner) 20 lakh, M Siddharth (Indian spinner) 20 lakh

Coming into the auction, it looked like KKR were searching for a captain for the upcoming season. And as expected they picked up World Cup winning English captain Eoin Morgan for a hefty sum of Rs 5.25 crore after an intense bidding war.

Their next stop was acquiring the services of Australian pacer Pat Cummins. The KKR management made a late bid but was stubborn enough to lap up the former Kolkata player for a whopping Rs 15.50 crore – making him the highest paid overseas player in the history of IPL.

Their next two purchases were Rahul Tripathi (Rs 60 lakh), which made complete sense since they were looking for an opener after releasing Chris Lynn, and Varun Chakravarthy – a questionable buy for Rs 4 crore, especially after he dismal outing last year.’

In the end, they made the most shocking buy of 48-year-old Pravin Tambe, which defies at least any kind of cricketing logic. It will be interesting to see what they how they use him.

KKR’s ignorance to not buy back Chris Lynn and failure to pick up West Indian Shimron Hetmyer despite having enough money in the bank might come back to bite them next year during IPL 2020.

Mumbai Indians

• Amount Spent: Rs 11.1 crore
• Players Bought: Nathan Coulter-Nile (Australian fast bowler) Rs 8 crore, Chris Lynn (Australian batsman) Rs 2 crore, Saurabh Tiwary (Indian Batsman) Rs 50 lakh, Digvijay Deshmukh (Indian all-rounder) Rs 20 lakh, Prince Balwant Rai Singh (Indian all-Rounder) Rs 20 lakh, Mohsin Khan (Indian bowler) Rs 20 lakh

Mumbai Indians had a pretty balanced squad and expectedly didn’t jump into too many bidding wars at the IPL auction on Thursday. With 13.05 cr in their kitty and six slots to fill, the defending champions got the first name available on the table, Chris Lynn, for Rs 2 cr before splashing Rs 8 cr for Australian all-rounder Nathan Coulter-Nile.

Both the buys seem to be back-ups to their core team unless Suryakumar Yadav or Rohit Sharma come down to play at No 3 in the order. Besides the duo, the Paltans got the rest of the players at their base price itself — Saurabh Tiwary (Rs 50 lakh), Mohsin Khan (Rs 20 lakh), Digvijay Deshmukh (Rs 20 lakh) and Balwant Rai Singh (Rs 20 lakh).

Undoubtedly, they used their resources well and will once again be one of the teams to beat at the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League.

Kings XI Punjab

• Amount Spent: Rs 26.20 crore
• Players Bought: Glenn Maxwell (Australia, batsman) Rs 10.75 crore, Sheldon Cottrell (WI, pacer) Rs 8.50 crore, Chris Jordan (England, pacer) Rs 3 crore, Ravi Bishnoi (Indian leg-spinner) Rs 2 crore, Prabhsimran Singh (Indian wk) Rs 55 lakh, Deepak Hooda (Indian batsman) Rs 50 lakh, Jimmy Neesham (NZ all-rounder) Rs 50 lakh, Tejinder Dhillon (Indian batsma) Rs 20 lakh, Ishan Porel (Indian pacer) Rs 20 lakh

More than that on the auction table, the biggest news from the Kings XI Punjab camp came off it as the Mohali-based side named KL Rahul as their skipper for the upcoming season of the IPL. However, it doesn’t seem like he was their first-choice captain and they were definitely looking for options in the auction pool.

With the maximum purse available in the market and 11 slots to fill, they splashed a whooping Rs 10.75 crore on former captain Glenn Maxwell and broke the bank yet again for Sheldon Cottrell, roping him in for Rs 8.5 cr.

The only other player for whom they had to splash for more than a crore was England’s fast bowler Chris Jordan (Rs 3cr) while they got a host of domestic players like Deepak Hooda, Ravi Bishnoi, Ishan Porel on their roster.

Despite a squad overhaul, Kings XI Punjab will bank on the explosive pair of Chris Gayle and KL Rahul at the top of the order but with Maxwell’s inclusion in the side, they now have a finisher who they can bank on as well.

Rajasthan Royals

• Amount Spent: Rs 14.15 crore
• Players Bought: Robin Uthappa (Rs 3 crore), Jaydev Unadkat (Rs 3 crore), Yashasvi Jaiswal (Rs 2.40 crore), Kartik Tyagi (Rs 1.30 crore), Tom Curran (Rs 1 crore), Andrew Tye (Rs 1 crore), Anuj Rawat (Rs 80 lakh), David Miller (Rs 75 lakh), Oshane Thomas (Rs 50 lakh), Anirudha Ashok Joshi (Rs 20 lakh), Akash Singh (Rs 20 lakh)

The Indian Premier League’s first-ever winners, Rajasthan Royal’s started their 2020 IPL auction with the purchase of opener Robin Uthappa for Rs 3 crore which also ended up being their joint-highest bid of the day.

While they stayed away from bidding for the big ticket players, Rajasthan once again bought back Jaydev Unadkat despite releasing him in the off season (for a third time)

Apart from the top two buys, Rajasthan Royals were also successful in acquiring the services of 18-year Mumbai wonder boy Yashasvi Jaiswal for Rs 2.75 crore and more importantly, got David Miller for a steal at Rs 75 lakh. However, it remains to be seen if he gets any game time in a squad that boats of Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer in their overseas player column.

The Royals completed their quota of 25 players with Rs 14,75,000 still left in their purse.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

• Amount Spent: Rs 6.9 crore
• Players Bought: Mitchell Marsh (Australia all-rounder) Rs 2 crore, Priyam Garg (Indian batsman) Rs 1.9 crore, Virat Singh (Indian batsman) Rs 1.90 crore, Fabien Allen (WI spinner) Rs 50 lakh, B Sandeep (Indian batsman) Rs 20 lakh, Sanjay Yadav (Indian all-rounder) Rs 20 lakh, Abdul Samad (Indian all-rounder) Rs 20 lakh

Sunrisers Hyderabad came into the 2020 IPL auction with just Rs 17 crore in their purse and the former champions’ highest purchase of the day was Aussie all-rounder Mitchell Marsh, at his base price of Rs 2 crore.

The Kane Williamson-led side will also have the services of India’s Under-19 skipper Priyam Garg and Virat Singh in the upcoming IPL.

While Priyam is India’s captain at next month’s Under-19 ICC World Cup, Virat too is a junior cricketer. Both have been bought for Rs 1.90 crore each. Apart from them, Hyderabad bought West Indies bowler Fabian Allen at his base price of Rs 50 lakh.

Sunrisers Hyderabad completed their quota of 25 players with 10 Cr 10 Lakh still left in their purse.