A year after he became the IPL’s most expensive overseas signing, Ben Stokes won another bumper deal at the player auction, selling for ₹12.5 crore to Rajasthan Royals here on Saturday. The explosive England all-rounder may have legal issues to deal with, but that did not deter franchises from battling for his services.
K.L. Rahul and Manish Pandey earned ₹11 crore each, while the Australian trio of Chris Lynn, Mitchell Starc and Glenn Maxwell all attracted bids of at least ₹9 crore. In a reflection of his growing stature as a T20 bowler, the Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan also fetched ₹9 crore.
This was a great day, though, for uncapped players. Krunal Pandya was retained for ₹8.8 crore — 22 times his base price — by Mumbai Indians, while Australia’s D’Arcy Short (₹4 cr) and the Barbados-born all-rounder Jofra Archer (₹7.2 cr) both made big gains.
A total of 13 uncapped Indian players earned a minimum of ₹3 crore and 17 of them ₹1 crore or more.
“Our emphasis is on uncapped players,” said the IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla afterwards. “I’m happy that most of the franchises are spending money on uncapped players; that’s a good thing.”
A total of 110 players were up for auction on Saturday, with 78 of them finding buyers. Kings XI Punjab was by far the busiest franchise in the morning, pursuing a number of marquee players, even if did not acquire most of them.
The team did manage to land R. Ashwin for ₹7.6 crore, edging out Rajasthan Royals. Chennai Super Kings, which had entered the bidding for its local hero, withdrew from the race at the ₹4 crore-mark. Punjab also roped in Rahul — who may not be part of India’s ODI squad but was chased aggressively here by four teams — and his in-form Karnataka team-mate Karun Nair (₹5.6 cr).
Stokes was fifth under the hammer in the morning, and immediately attracted interest from CSK and Punjab. KKR joined the race at 6.8, before pulling out at 12. It was Rajasthan which jumped in at that point to make the winning bid.
Ranjit Barthakur, the CEO of the franchise, said he had no hesitation in bidding for the player once the ECB had cleared him. Rajasthan, which also signed Ajinkya Rahane, and the BBL stars Short and Archer, will have been satisfied with its work.
The right-to-match card played an interesting role in proceedings, with the likes of Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya (both MI), Ajinkya Rahane (RR), Dwayne Bravo (CSK), Yuzvendra Chahal (RCB), Shikhar Dhawan and Rashid Khan (both SRH) all retained by their former employers.
The India U-19 trio of Prithvi Shaw (₹1.2 cr, DD), Shubman Gill (₹1.8 cr, KKR) and Kamlesh Nagarkoti (₹3.2 cr, KKR) were all predictably snapped up. There were no takers, however, for the likes of Chris Gayle, Hashim Amla, Joe Root and Ishant Sharma, although that could change on the second day of the auction.