R Ashwin wonders if it’s alright for overseas players, especially Australians, to target mini-auction where big money is splurged and Kumble says it’s time to have a fixed overseas cap on overseas players
Sitting at his home in Melbourne, Mitchell Starc was one of the many Australian players, inquiring with their skipper Pat Cummins when and where he was taking them for dinner. The Australian Test team’s WhatsApp group was buzzing with messages and jokes, some even checking with Cummins which property he is buying up next for he had just become the costliest IPL player ever as Sunrisers Hyderabad bought him for Rs 20.50 crore. The IPL player auctions, which makes global headlines and history being made every year, had touched the Rs 20 crore barrier for the first time. But little did Starc or anyone know it would be the shortest lived history ever and all his teammates would turn to him as an hour later as the left-arm pacer eclipsed his captain to be the most expensive IPL player ever with Kolkata Knight Riders spending a whopping Rs 24.75 crore on him.
That the two Australian pacers, fresh from the World Cup triumph on Indian soil, would be the most sought after ones was expected. For only a month ago in Ahmedabad, they had outfoxed, out-fought an Indian team that looked unstoppable. If one goes by history, such performances coming close to player auctions have always fetched big pay cheques for players. And that these two happen to be precious commodities called fast bowlers meant, they were bound to generate interest.
But it is the price that has made everyone drop their jaw. To put things into perspective, in the inaugural player auction, the minimum salary cap itself was only Rs 24.95 crore. Each year, the winning team in the IPL, takes home Rs 20 crore. At Rs 24.75 crore and Rs 20.50 crore, Starc and Cummins would get more than a crore for each game they play in the IPL. And the money they take home for featuring two months of the IPL is more than what they earn from Cricket Australia’s annual contract. That even the Ambanis, who were in the Mumbai Indians table, couldn’t go for them after being part of the initial bid showed how priceless they were.
As Cummins bid hit Rs 20 crore, a round of applause went around the auction room. And when Starc’s winning bid ended at Rs 24.75 crore, they were awestruck. But not once there was a sense of disbelief. To search for logic in IPL auctions would be akin to searching for a drop of water spilled from a glass. Vikram Solanki of Gujarat Titans, who lost out on the battle to sign Starc summed things up. “It (price) was the one to take him.”
Source:indianexpress.com