Unadkat top buy, Gayle goes to Punjab

Stokes, who was named the most valuable player past year following a £1.7m contract with Rising Pune Supergiant, has joined Rajasthan Royals. The Mumbai Indians franchise had a quiet day today, and will probably pick the best players on the second day.

Indian batsmen Manish Pandey and Lokesh Rahul both pocketed $1.7m after being sold to Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kings XI Punjab on Saturday.

A total of 19 RTM cards were used by the franchises to snatch the players of their choice. Last year, it was the turn of Rashid Khan to mesmerise and impress for Sunrisers Hyderabad and this year it could be teenager Mujeeb Zadran.

Gayle, holder of a record 20 centuries in T20s and one of the major crowd pullers in the IPL, looked like he may not return to the most expensive and popular cricket league in the world. The young pacer was the find of the tournament previous year and working great till now.

Karun Nair is yet to make his T20I debut but he went for a whopping ₹5.6 crore to Kings XI Punjab.

The Karnataka born all-rounder is uncapped at the global level but is making all the right noises at the domestic level and was picked by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 6.20 crore.

Among the wicketkeepers, Dinesh Karthik once again bagged a lucrative ‘7.4 crore deal with the KKR. Thus, even if it comes a bit late in my career, I don’t mind since the later it comes, the more mature cricketer I might be!

The pacer played for Rising Pune Supergiant in the last edition and grabbed attention after claiming a hat-trick.

Punjab beat off bidding from Chennai and Rajasthan before sealing the deal. However, after we’d put our squad together and had some of the purse left, we made a decision to go for him. We are prepared for legal consequences too.

Ranjit Barthakur, the chairman of the Royals’ parent company, was among those most delighted with their buy.

Mitchell Johnson was overlooked on day one of the auction, but the left-arm quick found a home on Sunday when he was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for $388,000.

Surprisingly, Unadkat was more expensive than even star New Zealand fast bowler Trent Boult, who was bought by Delhi Daredevils for Rs 2.2 crore.

Meanwhile, Chris Gayle, a long-time RCB player and firm fan-favourite, went unsold in the auction but he could still be signed on Sunday.

Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin went for $1.19 million to Kings XI Punjab.

Daredevils, however, got their probable captain in Gautam Gambhir at a dirt cheap rate. While Yuvraj was picked by KXIP for the base price of Rs.2 Crore as no one was interested in bidding for him.

Dwayne Bravo was taken for Rs 6.40 crore by CSK using the RTM card.

Mumbai Indians relatively had a quiet auction, though they managed to use RTM to get back Kieron Pollard and Krunal Pandya while bagging worldwide bowlers – Pat Cummins and Mustafizur Rahman. Mumbai Indians shelled out as much as ₹8.8 crore to bring back Krunal Pandya to their side while Jofra Archer was snapped up Rajasthan Royals for a mammoth ₹7.2 crore.