Sunday, June 17, 2012

Testosterone Sparks Indian Premier League Bidding Frenzy

Cricket: The IPL auction opens with frenzied bidding and MS Dhoni the most expensive purchase


The Indian Premier League player auction opened here this morning with an outbreak of testosterone-fueled bidding entirely in keeping with the hype and financial excess already synonymous with this remarkable project.


Owners of the eight franchises that make up the nascent league gathered behind closed doors at the Hilton Towers hotel on Mumbai's western waterfront at 11am, and immediately began spending money like the billionaires many of them are. In the first two hours of the auction only 10 players were sold, but their total value of $7.175m demonstrated the fever that appears to have overcome some franchise owners when presented with their pick of the world's highest-profile cricketers.


The players were presented in lots of six, with the marquee names first to go under the hammer. Top of the list was India's one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, signed for an astonishing $1.5m, a cool $1.1m more than his reserve price, by the Chennai franchise-owned Indian Cements. Chennai also captured Muttiah Muralitharan for $600,000, well above his $250,000 reserve price.


As expected Adam Gilchrist was in high demand, eventually fetching $700,000 from Hyderabad that will ensure his retirement from international cricket will be comfortable.


Franchises have a minimum spend of $3.3m and a maximum of $5m for their squads, with players signed for an initial three years, but the restrictions do not appear to have occurred to some franchise owners.


The morning's biggest spender was the Mumbai franchise owned by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani. He kept his hand in his pocket in the first round but made up for it when the second batch of players were put up. Ambani signed 39-year-old Sri Lankan opener Sanath Jayasuriya for $975,000, the second-highest bid of the day, and Harbhajan Singh for $800,000.


Mumbai is already guaranteed the services of Sachin Tendulkar, who under IPL regulations must be paid a salary amounting to 115% of the next-highest paid player in the franchise. That takes Ambani's total spending to $2,946,250, leaving just over $2m left to fill the other 13 places in his squad.


"There's so much testosterone in there it's unbelievable," said a franchise source inside the private auction. "They are spending money at an incredible rate, and it has been quite easy to force the prices up. I think it's just dawned on some of these guys that they have to pay these wages for three years."


Among the shrewdest moves of the day appears to have been Jaipur's capture of Shane Warne for his reserve price of $450,000. Owned by the British-based Emerging Media, their strategy appears to be to build a side with one mega star leading younger players. Manoj Badale, boss of Emerging Media, arrived with that strategy, but admitted he was prepared to adapt to the unique circumstances of the auction. "We've got a plan of course, but this is an auction," he said. "This is about what others do as much as what we do."


Surprisingly to some, Glenn McGrath and Mohammed Yousuf attracted no bidders in the morning round, but they will go on to a reserve list and may yet receive a later-career bonus.


Nobody yet knows how good the cricket will be when the IPL's billion-dollar circus finally gets under way in April, but judging by today's events the hype will be world-class. The auction, in which 78 players from around the world are going under the hammer, has shoved President Musharraf's election defeat in Pakistan off the new bulletins and dominates the papers.


Skilfully orchestrated by international sports agency IMG and Lalat Modi, commissioner of the IPL and a vice-president of the BCCI, the event is proving a masterpiece of marketing. Before a ball has been bowled the IPL has raised $1.8bn in revenue and sent tremors through the international game. Today's event is another shrewd step in a campaign to fuel interest in the nascent tournament.


Shortly after dawn journalists and camera crews gathered at the Hilton Towers hotel on the city's western waterfront, awaiting the arrival of the franchise owners and players that have already lent glamor to the competition. Veejay Mallaya, India's highest-profile billionaire whose personal PR would make Richard Branson blush, arrived to a characteristic burst of flash bulbs, as did the captain of his Bangalore franchise, Rahul Dravid. Sourav Ganguly, also an IPL "icon player" assigned to the Kolkata franchise, drew similar attention.


When the auction finally got under way at 11.15am in a private function room at the hotel there was no sign, however, of Shah Ruikh Khan and Preity Zinta, the Bollywood stars whose involvement in the Kolkata and Mohali franchises respectively has sprinkled stardust on this remarkable sporting start-up.


Players sold so far


Shane Warne $450,000, Jaipur MS Dhoni $1.5m, Chennai Adam Gilchrist $700,000, Hyderabad Shoaib Akhtar $425,000, Kolkata Mahela Jayawardene $475,000, Mohali Muttiah Muralitharan $600,000, Chennai Anil Kumble $500,000, Bangalore Harbhajan Singh $850,000, Mumbai Glenn McGrath unsold Mohammad Yousuf unsold Sanath Jayasuriya $975,000, Mumbai Kumar Sangakkara $700,000, Mohali

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