LAHORE – The players’ auction for the fourth edition of the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) is going to be held on January 8-9, once again without Pakistani players.
Despite the permission by the Pakistan Cricket Board, no Pakistani cricketer would be auctioned. A BCCI official was reported to have said that the auction will not be postponed for any reason and will go as planned.
A total of 350 players will go under the hammer including some of the best cricketers for the 10-team event. With inclusion of Pune and Kochi and court orders to retain Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals, the IPL-4 become a ten-team tournament.
The fourth edition of the world’s most popular cricket tournament will span over 40 days as India will host 74 matches of the event. Each participating franchise has been given a salary cap of nine million US dollars to be spent for purchasing the cricketers of their liking.
With 350 players available for trade, the total purse of about 223 million US dollars would be spent during the course of the next two days by the IPL franchises to get the services of the best players of the world. The franchises have decided to keep 12 of their players while 21 others have received the base rate of four million US dollars.
Some of the top cricket heroes will go under the hammer including England’s Kevin Pietersen, New Zealand’s Ross Taylor, Australia’s Cameron White, Indian’s Yusuf Pathan, South Africa’s AB de Villiers.
Some of the other top-notch players including Australian Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds, West Indian Chris Gayle and Darren Bravo, South African Dale Steyn and Jacques Kallis, and English Greme Swann will also be centre of attraction of the franchises’ owners.
The 12 players kept by the IPL franchises include Sachin Tendulkar and Keiron Pollard who were retained by the Mumbai Indians, owned by Ambanis; Chennai Indians kept Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Albie Morkel in their squad; while Delhi Daredevils refused to release Virender Sehwag.
