Thirty-six players including the likes of in-form Yuzvendra Chahal and Rashid Khan, stars not retained such as R. Ashwin, Gautam Gambhir, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo, along with fading stars like Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh have fixed their base price in the highest bracket of ₹2 crore for the forthcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) player auction, to be held in Bengaluru on January 27 and 28.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India has circulated the first short-list of players among the eight IPL franchises. The team managements, should they wish to include additional players, have been asked to inform the BCCI by January 15. The last deadline for short-listing the final list has been set for January 18.
The BCCI has announced 1,122 players short-listed for the auction and according to the list, accessed by The Hindu , India’s white-ball regulars like Kedar Jadhav and Dinesh Karthik have preferred to be in the highest base price bracket.
Top-order batsmen K.L. Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane have also preferred to be in the same category along with the Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan and Australians Mitchell Starc, Glenn Maxwell, Pat Cummins and Chris Lynn.
Rashid, along with England all-rounder Ben Stokes, could well be one of the most sought-after players in the auction.
The surprise entrants to the top two base-price brackets have been Australia’s Cameron White, England’s Liam Plunkett, South Africa’s Colin Ingram (₹2 crore each) along with India all-rounder Washington Sundar and medium-pacer Mohit Sharma.
Both Washington and Mohit, along with the likes of Kuldeep Yadav and Jaydev Unadkat, have asked for a minimum of ₹1.5 crore each.
Some of India regulars, including the new-ball duo of Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami, have put a lower base price of ₹1 crore each.
Among the uncapped players, Baroda all-rounders Krunal Pandya and Deepak Hooda have selected ₹40 lakh, the highest for an uncapped player, as their base price.
