The Indian Premier League (IPL) auction is only a few days away and it goes without saying that the franchises and teams have started planning for the mega event. The auction is all set to take place on 19 December in Kolkata. The list of players retained and released was announced a few days back and it would be fair to say that there were quite a few surprising calls taken by the teams. Star players like Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn of Kolkata Knight Riders; Sam Curran, David Miller of the Kings XI Punjab and Chris Morris of Delhi Capitals were released by their respective franchises.
The trade window prior to the auction also saw some massive changes. Ajinkya Rahane and Ravichandran Ashwin are set to don the Delhi Capital colours in the forthcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Another massive deal saw Trent Boult move from the Delhi capitals to the Mumbai Indians. Similarly, Mumbai Indians find Mayank Markande was traded twice in a single trade window as he first went from Mumbai to Delhi and later shifted base from Delhi to Rajasthan.
971 players, including 258 overseas stars are all set to go under the hammer this year.
Ahead of the much-awaited auction, let us have a look at 2 capped Indian players who put a hole of more than 10 crore in their franchise’s pockets.
Ravindra Jadeja (12 Crore)
Ravindra Jadeja entered the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the third successive year in 2012. This is because the Rajasthan Royals (RR) did not retain him in the 2010 auction while his next franchise Kochi Tuskers Kerela did not contest in the 2012 edition. Although Jadeja did not receive hefty bids in the first couple of auctions, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the now-defunct Deccan Chargers wanted the star all-rounder in their squad and were willing to pay any amount.
As it turned out, Jadeja has been bagged by the CSK team for a massive INR 12 crore rupees. He is still a vital part of the CSK squad which indicates his consistent performances in the league.
Dinesh Karthik (12.5 Crore, 10.5 Crore)
Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik ended as the second-most-expensive star of the Indian Premier League Auction in 2014 and 2015. Delhi Daredevils (DD) spent as much as 12.50 crores to have him in their squad in 2014 but released him prior to the auction in 2015.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) then decided to draft him by spending 10.5 Crore in the next auction. However, Karthik could only score 141 runs for RCB in as many as 16 matches in that season. While he averaged just 12.81 runs in that season, his highest score was just 28 runs. He was thus released by RCB.
Currently, Karthik is the skipper of the IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders.