IPL auction: Watson, Negi emerge biggest millionaires

NEW DELHI: Shane Watson emerged the biggest of purchases from the 2016 IPL player auction in Bangalore, finding his second franchise in Royal Challengers Bangalore who forked out Rs 9.5 crore for his services, but the real head-turner of the day was uncapped Indian allrounder Pawan Negi. A day after he was named in India's squad for the Asia Cup and ICC World Twenty20, the 23-year-old found his IPL value skyrocket from a base price of just Rs 30 lakh to a whopping 8.5 crore with Delhi Daredevils putting in the highest bid.

That made Negi the most expensive Indian player, surpassing the likes of Yuvraj Singh (7 crore) and Mohit Sharma (6.5 crore) on a day in which 136 crore was spent on 94 cricketers across the eight IPL franchises.

Noticeable among those to fetch multi-crore paychecks were South African allrounder Chris Morris, who went for Rs 7 crore to Delhi Daredevils (14 times his base price), Ashish Nehra (5.5 crore) and Deepak Hooda (4.2 crore) to Sunrisers Hyderabad, Mitchell Marsh (4.8 crore) and little-known Tamil Nadu spinner Murugan Ashwin (4.5 crore) to Rising Pune Super Giants, Sanju Samson and West Indies allrounder Carlos Braithwate for 4.2 crore each to Daredevils.

Negi, who two seasons ago had been signed by the suspended Chennai Super Kings, saw new IPL franchise Pune, led by his former CSK captain MS Dhoni and coached by Stephen Fleming, engage in a bidding war with Daredevils. In the end, the GMR-owned franchise put in the highest bid. That gave the Delhi cricketer the second highest price tag of the day after Watson.

The Australian, who for eight seasons has represented Rajasthan Royals until their suspension last year, attracted heavy bidding from RCB and Mumbai Indians, but it the Vijay Malya-owned franchise nabbed his services from a base price of 2 crore. Watson recently scored the second-highest individual score in Twenty20 internationals, and apart from his all-round value he also offers RCB a strong leadership role.

The third highest earners were Yuvraj, who went to Sunrisers, and Morris. After an initial moment of inactivity around the auction room in Bangalore, Sunrisers and Mumbai started a bidding tussle for Yuvraj, which eventually ended at 7 crore. From the pool of allrounders, the most bidding was for Morris, with Mumbai and KKR chasing the South African eagerly until the paddle went down at a huge Rs 7 crore by Daredevils, in their first bid of the round.

At 6.5 crore, Mohit Sharma was Kings XI Punjab's biggest spend, from his reserve price of 1.5 crore. Among those players who have limited international experience, the selection of 27-year-old Braithwate - with 307 runs and 33 wickets from 37 T20 games - for 14 times his reserve price was surprising. Daredevils had staved off serious waging from KKR to seal the deal at 4.2 crore and just moments later the West Indian allrounder tweeted a smiley face that found multiple retweets.

From the uncapped players set, surging from base prices of just 10 lakh were the young Baroda allrounder Deepak Hooda to a mammoth 4.2 crore and Karnataka batsman Karun Nair not far behind at Rs 4 crore. The former Rajasthan Royals team-mates went to Daredevils and Sunrisers respectively. After spending heavily on Samson, Daredevils added U-19 vice-captain Rishabh Pant for 1.9 crore from a base of 10 lakh. 

The other IPL entrant, Rajkot-based Gujarat Lions, invested in three overseas players in Dwayne Smith (2.3 crore), Dale Steyn (2.3 crore) and Aaron Finch (1 crore) while acquiring Praveen Kumar (3.5 crore), Dinesh Karthik (2.3 crore) and Dhawal Kulkarni (2 crore) to lend their squad a solid Indian presence. They spent on several uncapped players too, pitching up 1 crore for Uttar Pradesh wicketkeeper Eklavya Dwivedi, 35 lakh for current India Under-19 captain Ishan Kishan and 1 lakh on Himachal Pradesh veteran Paras Dogra.

Mumbai's biggest spend was big-hitting England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler (3.8 crore), followed by rookie Rajasthan seamer bowler Nathu Singh (3.2 crore from a base price of 10 lakh) and New Zealand quick Tim Southee (2.5 crore). They dipped into their purse to select two virtually unknown players too, Baroda's Krunal Pandya for 2 crore and the Karnataka Premier League's Kishore Kamath.

Aside from Nehra, Sunrisers added two additional left-arm pace options in Bangladesh's Mustafizur Rahman at 1.4 crore and Barinder Sran at 1.2 crore. KXIP bolstered their bowling by getting South Africa's Kyle Abbott for Rs 2.1 crore, significantly more than his base price of 30 lakh. Kolkata Knight Riders were the most low-key of franchise, spending a maximum of 1.6 crore on Jaydev Unadkat. The two-time title winners added Jason Holder, John Hastings and Ankit Rajpoot to their pace bowling core, and the big-hitting New Zealander Colin Munro as one of their overseas batsmen.

Surprisingly, one of the marquee players, New Zealand opener Martin Guptill, went unsold twice. Other players who were passed on where the in-form Usman Khawaja, Michael Hussey and Pragyan Ojha.

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Team India for WT20, Asia Cup: Yuvraj, Bhajji retained, Shami recalled

Indian selectors included young all-rounder Pawan Negi and paved the way for Bengal pacer Mohammed Shami’s comeback in the Indian squad on Friday for the World Twenty20 and Asia Cup tournaments.

The selectors have also retained Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh in the 15-member squad for the two events.

Debutants in the recent limited-overs series Down Under, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya also found a place in the squad. “This is the best combination of 15 we can think of,” chairman of the selectors’ committee, Sandeep Patil, told a news conference.

However, the pace duo of Ishant Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been ignored.

Left-arm spinner Negi (23), who is considered handy with the bat, earlier received his first call-up to the India squad who play Sri Lanka in the first Twenty20 International in Pune on February 9.

Manish Pandey, who featured in the T20 series against Australia, was left out of the team which will be captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

“We have no right to tell people when to retire, we have total faith in Dhoni’s captaincy. He is the right person to lead in Asia Cup and World T20,” Patil said.

The Asia Cup will be held from February 24 to March 6, after a four-team qualifying event, from February 19-22, to select one qualifier for the actual tournament.

India take on hosts Bangladesh in the tournament opener at Mirpur followed by matches against arch-rivals Pakistan (February 27), Sri Lanka (March 1) and qualifiers (March 3).

This is the first time the Asia Cup is being played in the T20 format, in a change from the earlier 50-over competitions.

In the World Twenty20 championship, commencing on March 8, India have been seeded in the Super 10 and will play New Zealand in their opening game on March 15 at Nagpur’s VCA Stadium in Jamtha.

Team

MS Dhoni (captain and wicketkeeper), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Mohammed Shami, Pawan Negi.

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