The franchisees were more judicious in their bidding at the auction for the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Mumbai Tuesday. They did their home work and knew exactly what their requirements were. The talking point, however, is the Pakistani players missing from the Twenty20 bash.
The corporate and celebrity owners of the teams had $750,000 to buy players and four franchisees went for broke in bidding for Kieron Pollard, and Mumbai Indians took the tie-breaker outpricing the others.
IPL chief Lalit Modi has come up with a novel piece of ingenuity to break the deadlock like it had happened in the case of Shane Bond, too. Any amount above the maximum permissible $750,000 budget to buy a player, the franchises will have to quote their price and that premium amount will go into the IPL kitty. More than one franchisee were reportedly not happy coughing up extra dough.
The franchisees know who to bid for. This time they did not go in for big and exciting names. If they were blind to the realities, they would have gone for Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Umar Akmal or even Abdul Razak. Or for that matter some hardened pros like the Australians. They were wise enough not to touch any of these players simply because their availability is not guaranteed.
The Pakistani players are not amused. They have taken it as a personal affront. They feel insulted, more so because most of them were part of the team that won the World Twenty20 Championship barely seven months ago. They feel bad because they have been snubbed after their board and government have cleared them to play in India.
There is no official explanation for the silence when Afridi’s name was called before any other, but at least two celebrity owners insisted that the tension between India and Pakistan had nothing to do with the Pakistani players failing to attract bidders.
The owners want us to believe that they went by their requirements and that not much should be read into the exclusion of the Pakistanis. At least Ness Wadia was honest enough to say that his Kings Punjab suffered last two years when quite a few of their Australian recruits deserted the team. Come to think of it the Australians are as vulnerable as the Pakistanis, what with the Shiv Sena threatening them from playing in Mumbai and Nagpur.
Modi is right — too many mouths to feed with only a few morsels. Most players did not fit into the teams’ scheme of things and all of them came prepared who they wanted to fill in the limited slots available. Also, they did not want to be left high and dry this time if players pull out or leave midstream. They were looking for safe bets, not wanting to spend money on prima donnas.
Rajasthan went for Damien Martyn and it was obviously their captain Shane Warne’s choice. Likewise, the deposed Punjab captain Yuvraj Singh still seems to have some clout to influence them in reinstating his under-19 India captain and a close pal Mohammad Kaif in the IPL after no-one wanted to buy him in the first instance.
Kaif was re-entered in the auction and this time Punjab came to his rescue. England international Eoin Miorgan, perhaps, could not have got into Bangalore without Kevin Pietersen putting in a word for him.
Franchisees carried the speed guns with them to the auction. Apart from Pollard and Bond, only Kevin Roach ($720,000) came anywhere near the maximum cut-off figure, from a base price of a mere $100,000, and reigning IPL champions Deccan Chargers got him. The other player to attract a sizable bid was South African pacer Wayne Parnell ($610,000) and he was snatched by Delhi Daredevils.
With so much of cricket all round and the season still on, the impact of the IPL will be keenly measured by the TRP ratings and the crowd pull. After missing the last one, there should be enough hunger for the ‘fatafat cricket’.