How the IPL Auction has evolved

The dust has settled down after two days of fierce bidding war in Bengaluru and the jury is still out on which franchise has stacked up the best squads. The IPL auctions of the past have witnessed many a life changing moment for the players.

In 2008, a young Ishant Sharma became a near-millionaire earning more than the likes of Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting & Matthew Hayden. Brian Lara and Sourav Ganguly were overlooked in 2011 while a relatively unknown Saurabh Tiwary became a millionare overnight. Chris Gayle found no takers, but he returned in middle of the tournament to finish as the highest run-getter of the season and redefine the batting in the shortest format.

T20 cricket was still at its infancy when the IPL began in 2008. Ten years on, the format has evolved and the league is now its cash cow, as well as the vehicle for development. The teams have become smarter with the help of data analysis, and terms like balls per boundary and dot-ball percentage have gained prominence in cricket's vocabulary ahead of averages and strike rates.

If it was star power which earned big bucks in 2008, T20 skills came into the fore in the next few auctions. Availability of players was a key metric for some years next, but with IPL now almost having a separate window in FTP, that issue seems to be sorted out. With IPL scouts now being part of every domestic and Under-19 competition, the commodities unexposed to international cricket were the flavour of the latest IPL auctions. As one from the Delhi Daredevils think-tank puts it, "Once they come into limelight, their prices sky-rocket and it becomes difficult for us to get them again. We've had the experience of losing out on Virat Kohli in 2008, and don't want to risk it again. We see (Sandeep) Lamichhane as a player for the future."

How different or same was the IPL auction this time compared to the previous one?

- 169 players were bought by the eight franchises in two days to fill a possible 182 slots. After six overseas players were retained, a maximum of 58 slots were left vacant for the foreign players and 56 of them were filled. In comparison, only 89 players were bought in two rounds in 2008, 127 (when ten sides were around) in 2011 and 154 in 2014 (81 capped).

Auctions in a glance

** All amount in USD

The average price per player remained almost the same across the four auctions - around 400,000 USD, a dip in 2014 because majority of the uncapped players getting sold for their base prices. But the biggest difference this auction witnessed was the unprecedented demand for uncapped players. In 2014 when uncapped players were made part of the auction for the first time, 73 of them were bought at an average price of around 55 lakhs.

Come 2018, the overall number of uncapped players bought increased only marginally - 73 to 78 - but the average price per players more than doubled - to 1.32 crore. (The similar corresponding median amount is from 20,000 lakhs in 2014 to 30,000 lakhs in 2018). From 13 uncapped 'crorepatis' in 2014, the number rose to 28 in 2018. In fact, 18 of the 28 earned in excess of three crore with Krunal Pandya setting the record price for an uncapped player - 8.80 crore. Karn Sharma (3.75 crore) and Rishi Dhawan (3.00 crore) were the only ones priced above three crore four years ago.

According to Delhi Daredevils head coach Ricky Ponting, "Younger players are playing a lot of T20 cricket, so they are developing the skills at a much younger age. As an older player it is difficult to keep up. I've been there as a player. But after 34-35 it is hard to improve. That might be the major reason for them to go quite cheaply in the auction."

From which country do the most sought-after players come from?

As with any other auction, Indian players were high in demand with 113 of them getting sold - nearly double that of all the overseas players (56). Australia had the most players sold in every major auction after India and this year was no different. They were the only overseas country to receive bids for more than ten players (17). Three of the top four overseas picks were all from Australia - Chris Lynn (9.6 crore), Mitchell Starc (9.4 crore) and Glenn Maxwell (9.0 crore).

Among other countries, South Africa had a reasonably quiet auction with Kagiso Rabada earning the biggest price tag - 4.2 crore (down from 5.0 crore in 2017). Eight of them were bought including the newcomers Lungi Ngidi and Cameron Delport, with all of them fetching lower prices compared to their last pay check. Only seven New Zealand players found home out of the 24 who were part of the original list as franchises showed little interest in the long line of New Zealand pacers, apart from the duo of Tim Southee and Trent Boult.

As far England is concerned, the multi-skilled players (all-rounders & wicketkeepers) received fat pay checks - Ben Stokes fetching the biggest, worth INR 12.50 Crore - while specialist batsmen and bowlers evoked little interst apart from Mark Wood. The relatively high base prices could also be a reason for most of the English players to go unsold.

The on field performance of Sri Lankan teams reflected in their players' demand in the auction. Only two players were picked, both for their base price of 50 lakhs each, and that too in the second round. It was a drastic fall for the island nation, considering they had the second highest price per player in 2011 (USD 575,556) after India. In comparison, four Afghan players were picked with three of them valued at above a crore. As far as the Bangladesh contingent is concerned, barring Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahaman no other player even went under the hammer.

Wrist spinners, local pacers and uncapped all-rounders break banks

The DNA of bowling attack for teams in most of the previous seasons comprised of Indian spinners and overseas seamers with local pacers used as fillers. Quality Indian pacers were scarcely available. Unless they packed a mystery element to their game - like Sunil Narine - it was tough for an overseas spinner to find a place. Ask Imran Tahir or Ish Sodhi - both were number one in ICC T20I bowling rankings in 2017 and 2018 respectively and found no takers in the auction in respective years.

While it proved tough for overseas traditional spinners yet again (Tahir and Mitchell Santner were sold for their base price), the ones who were relatively unknown in the international circuit and could turn the ball both ways, often at high speeds, were in big demand. The Afghan duo of Rashid Khan and 16-year old Mujeeb Zadran earned a combined total of 13 crore between them with another team mate of theirs, Zahir Khan, also got a bid.

Jaydev Unadkat fetching the highest price for an Indian player in the auction was an indicator of how the teams expressed interest in the current crop of country's pace riches. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah - country's two most sought-after limited-overs seamers - retained, seven other Indian pacers earned in excess of three crore - four of them uncapped, while Sandeep Sharma has played all of two T20Is. In comparison, most of the capped Indian pacers who are more or less past their prime, failed to create any interest (Ishant Sharma, Varun Aaron, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Ashok Dinda etc).

The uncapped all-rounders were in high demand as well, with eight out of the ten players in the first set earning three or more crore. Krunal Pandya, Jofra Archer (7.2 crore), Krishnappa Gowtham (6.2 crore) and D'Arcy Short (4 crore), all earned big bucks.

Wrist spin was the flavour of the season, highlighted by the fact that they earned an average of 4.7 crore per player compared to the finger spinners' 2.6 crore per player. Only four finger spinners (including all-rounder Krunal Pandya) earned more than three crore, compared to eight wrist spinners.

How the franchises spent money?

The biggest turnaround in this year's auction was probably the way Rajasthan Royals bid adieu to their 'Moneyball' approach. This is further testified by the facts that two of the most expensive buys of the auction were made by Royals - Ben Stokes for 12.5 crore and Unadkat for 11.5 crore. Kings XI Punjab too went with a gung-ho approach, with 18 out of the 21 players in their squad getting paid in excess of one crore for the season. KXIP co-owner Priety Zinta tried to explain, "There's a saying in English 'the early bird gets the worm'. Every franchise will have similar players on their list. I made one mistake in one auction where I was like 'let's wait, we will use our money on some other player.' and it doesn't quite work out. We did not retain a lot of players, so we had a lot of spots open. It's just our personal experience. We have waited earlier, and it hasn't quite worked out. So, this time we didn't want to do that. And went for a lot of players early on".

Kolkata Knight Riders was another team on a shopping spree and they were the only side to splash their entire purse (including retentions). However, they are the only side to have less than 20 players in their squad (19) and as a result, their price per player stood the highest with 4.21 crore.

** All amount in INR

Who are the biggest gainers and losers?

It's not said without evidence that IPL can be life changing for players. Because of the dynamics of the auction process, one can go from rags to riches in a matter of minutes. Tymal Mills, with the experience of just four T20Is at the time of auctions last year fetched a whopping 12 crore - the fattest pay check for a bowler in the history of IPL. In a matter of 12-odd months, he found no takers in the auction this year. IPL's leading wicket-taker Lasith Malinga (8.1 crore) and James Faulkner (5.1 crore) are other millionaires who went unsold this time.

Yuzvendra Chahal, India's first-choice spinner in limited-overs was the biggest gainer in this year's auction with his price rising 60-times from 10 lakhs in 2014 to 6 crore in 2018. The highest priced Indian player Jaydev Unadkat (11.5 crore) saw a jaw-dropping increase of 38 times his price last year (30 lakhs). Siddarth Kaul, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana and Navdeep Saini all saw an increase of 30 times or more from their previous pay slip. Among overseas players, Andre Tye (50 lakhs to 7.2 crore) and Marcus Stoinis (55 lakhs to 6.2 crore) got a pay hike ten times the last time.

Biggest exponential increase from previous auction

At the other end of the spectrum, from the ones who got sold, the one with the biggest fall in paycheck was Tamil Nadu pacer T Natarajan. He was picked by Kings XI Punjab last year for three crore, but his stock fell in the past year and he got picked by Sun Risers Hyderabad for a modest 40 lakhs. Among the big names, Chris Gayle saw a pay decrease from 8.4 crore to two crore (after nearly going unsold). The Indian trio of Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir saw their worth falling by more than a third.

Biggest exponential decrease from previous auction

** All amount in INR