( By Manasi Agarwal)

The two-day IPL 2022 mega auction of cricketers was held at Bengaluru on 12 & 13 February. There were 10 franchise including two new teams: Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) based in Lucknow and owned by RPSG Group, who previously owned the Rising Pune Supergiant franchise between 2016 and 2017. K L Rahul is the captain of the team while, Andy Flower is the coach. K L Rahul was picked up by LSG in the draft for 16 crore. The other team is Gujarat Titans based in Ahmedabad and is owned by CVC Capital Partners. Hardik Pandya is the captain and Ashish Nehra, the coach. As many as 590 players, including 370 from India were shortlisted for the mega auction. A total purse of 561.5 crore was available with the franchises to firm up their squads for 15th season of the IPL. Total 204 players were sold for 551 crore. Out of it, 137 Indians players and 67 foreign players were purchased. 74 players were sold on the first day. Ishan Kishan became the costliest player purchased by Mumbai Indians at a cost of 11.50 crore on the first day of the auction. His last year salary was 6.2 crore, when he was with the same franchise. On the second day Liam Livingstone of England fetched the maximum price of 11.50 crore. He was purchased by Punjab Kings. Sachin Tendulkar son Arjun was also purchased by Mumbai Indians for 30 lakhs. He was also a part of the Mumbai Indians team last season. 10 players were purchased for more than 10 crore in the two-day auction. Umesh Yadav was purchased for 2 crore while Afganistan team captain Mohammad Nabi for 1 crore by Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR purchased wicket-keeper Sam Billings at base price of 1 crore and Marquee player Shreyas Iyer for 12.25 crore. Last year he was with Delhi Capitals and his salary was 7 crore. There were 10 marquee players in this year auction: 4 Indians and 6 foreign players. Their minimum base price was 2 crore. Australian Mathew Wade was purchased by Gujarat Titans for 2.40 crore. It will be his first IPL outing. Suresh Raina, Aaron Finch, Eoin Morgan and Cheteshwar Pujara, Steve smith, Dawid Malan, Marnus Labschagne, Imran Tahir and Adam ampa could not find favour from any franchise and remain unsold.
Following players were retained and picked in draft ahead of IPL 2022 auction.

Chennai Super Kings (CSK): Ravindra Jadeja (16 crore), MS Dhoni (12 crore), Moeen Ali (8 crore), Ruturaj Gaikwad (6 crore)

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): Andre Russell (12 crore), Varun Chakravarthy (8 crore), Venkatesh Iyer (8 crore), Sunil Narine (6 crore)

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH): Kane Williamson (14 crore), Abdul Samad (4 crore), Umran Malik (4 crore)

Mumbai Indians (MI): Rohit Sharma (16 crore), Jasprit Bumrah (12 crore), Suryakumar Yadav(8 crore), Kieron Pollard (6 crore)

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB): Virat Kohli (15 crore), Glenn Maxwell (11 crore), Mohammed Siraj (7 crore)

Rajasthan Royals (RR): Sanju Samson (14 crore), Jos Buttler (10 crore), Yashasvi Jaiswal (4 crore)

Punjab Kings (PBKS): Mayank Agarwal (12 crore), Arshdeep Singh (4 crore)

Delhi Capitals (DC): Rishabh Pant (16 crore), Prithvi Shaw (7.5 Crore), Axar Patel (9 crore) and Anrich Nortje (6.5 crore).

Gujarat Titans (GT): Hardik Pandya (15 crore), Rashid Khan(15 crore), and Shubman Gill (8 crore)

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG): KL Rahul (16 crore), Marcus Stoinis (9.2 crore) and Ravi Bishnoi (4 crore)

Following rules were also followed in IPL 2022 Mega Auction:

• Each franchise should spend a minimum of 67.5 crore from their purse of 90 crore.
• Each team should have a minimum of 18 players and a maximum of 25
• The base price of players ranged from 2 crore to 20 lakh.
2 crore is the highest reserve price and as many as 48 players were in this bracket.
20 players in the auction list with a reserve price of 1.5 crore
34 players were in the list of reserve price of 1 crore.
• When two teams are tied and exhausted all their purse trying to bid for a player, they can submit a final closed bid amount and the one whose bid is more will get the player. The extra amount bid is to be deposited with BCCI and will not be part of 90 crore purse. The process can be repeated till a clear winner emerges.

An unpleasant incident occurred on the first day of the auction, when 60-year old veteran British auctioneer Hugh Emandes collapsed during the biddings.
“Mr. Hugh Edmeades, the IPL Auctioneer, had an unfortunate fall due to Postural Hypotension during the IPL Auction this afternoon. The medical team attended to him immediately after the incident & he is stable,” read a statement from IPL.
“Mr. Charu Sharma will continue with the Auction proceedings today,” it added. Charu sharma continued the proceedings on Sunday as well.