IPL Second Auction on Tuesday

The second round of auction for IPL Teams is set to take place in Mumbai on Tuesday. Rajasthan Royals are best placed to make the most of the situation as they have US$2.05 million of unspent money, the most among the franchises, and are looking to sign up a couple of Australians, including Shane Watson and James Hopes. Eighteen players are up for grabs in this round with 16 Under-19 players being decided by the so called draft pick. Other franchises are focusing on buying U-19 players on the auction date.

The money remaining with the other franchises are:

Bangalore $374,000

Chennai $23,750

Delhi $71,250

Hyderabad $262,500

Kolkata $107,500

Mohali $292,250

Mumbai $53,750

It was reported that Jaipur were fined for under-bidding in the first auction - they spent only $2.9 million lesser than the minimum amount of US$3.3 million and were reportedly asked to pay the difference penalty - but Fraser, who is a support staff of the team said that they have not paid any fine so far.

Bangalore need focus on boosting their batting strength and should look to pick up at least one batsman during the auction. The Hyderabad franchisee has recently signed up former Indian cricketer Sanjay Bangar and is not seriously looking to pick up anyone here. The Chennai and Mumbai teams do not have much money with them and want to focus on the U-19 players in this auction round. The Kolkata franchisee may not be interested in the auction as they unveil their team logo and name around the same time when the auction will be held. Some of the franchises have made signings since the auction on February 20; these are largely junior players and those from the catchment areas.

Some Players who were signed up after the first round of auction are:

Delhi - Yo Mahesh, Shikhar Dhawan, Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia and Mayank Tehlan.

Bangalore - Sunil Joshi, Balachandra Akhil, R Vinay Kumar, Bharat Chipli, J Arun Kumar, KP Appanna, Devraj Patil.

Chennai - Goa's Shadab Jakati, Uttar Pradesh's Sudeep Tyagi, R Ashwin, Srikkanth Anirudha and S Badrinath.

Mumbai - Baroda wicket-keeper, Pinal Shah, along with Mumbai Ranji players Abhishek Nayar and Ajinkya Rahane and Maharashtra's Yogesh Takawale.

Hyderabad - Sanjay Bangar, Venugopal Rao, N Arjun Yadav, D Ravi Teja, Pragyan Ojha, D Kalyankrishna, P Vijay Kumar, M Sarveesh and Orissa's Halahar Das.

Mohali - VRV Singh and two U-22 players in Karan Goel and Uday Kaul.

Jaipur - Pankaj Singh and Mumbai's U-22 player Anup Revandkar

IPL on the right track!

Everything is going right and smooth for the Indian Premier League that is set to start come this April. The franchises have started naming their teams. The Chennai team will be called ‘Chennai Super Kings’ and the Delhi team will called ‘Delhi Daredevils’. Meanwhile, Greg Shippard, who coaches in the Australian domestic circuit, is all set to coach the Delhi team and World cup winning coach John Buchanan has been roped in to perform coaching duties for the Kolkata team to be captained by Sourav.

It has also been rumored that some of the Indian players are not too happy with the cap that has been fixed for bidding players for the different franchises. They are also unhappy with the pay packages as some of the players from other countries are set to earn more than what is being offered to them. Some of the Australian players like Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson have decided against playing in the IPL. There are also issues relating sharing of tickets with the respective state associations. Things may not be as easy as Lalit Modi would have thought it to be.

In an interesting twist, Sachin may opt against playing in IPL team for Mumbai and may become a non-playing captain providing the much needed guidance and tips to his teammates. Shah Rukh Khan, who won the Kolkata team is right now very busy finalizing the team’s attire and has roped in a high profile designer to design the team clothing and we may expect a tinge of Bollywood in them. He is being guided by Sourav regarding the team composition and support staff. It is no doubt that this league will provide a means for DADA to showcase his skills once again after being shown the door by the selectors.