The great Indian Cricket bizarre-
Andrew Symonds, Boucher, Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee sold for high prices… to billionaires with their billions on exhibition.
Jaipur’s Shane Warne will bowl to Hyderabad’s Gilchrist.
Shane Warne joins South Africa captain Graeme Smith to fight for Jaipur. Could be interesting because they have a history of strong verbal exchanges, on and off the field.
Tendulkar and Jayasuriya will fight for Mumbai.
The fiery McGrath has no takers!
Australians may be the world leaders, but for the Indian market, Indians come first and the Australians second. Ponting, the captain of an extraordinarily successful cricket team and with an excellent batting average was expected to fetch more. But is $US400,000 a small amount? It is when you see the monkeygate key player Andrew Symonds fetch $1.35 million. Hyderabad Nizam’s is his proud owner. Ponting’s potential earnings may have suffered because of the Sydney Test against India but then why did Symonds go for more?
Shahrukh Khan owns Shoaib Akhtar. His Kolkata team paid $464,000 to gain possession of this fiery bowler.
Ness Wadia pumped his fist and hugged partner and girlfriend, Bollywood actress Preity Zinta after buying Australia fast bowler Brett Lee for $900,000 for Mohali.19 year old Ishant Sharma fetched $950,000 from Shahrukh’s Kolkata. Irfan Pathan attracted a bid of $925,000 from Mohali, while South Africa’s Jacques Kallis was sold for US$900,000 to Mallya’s Bangalore team.
Five “icon” players reserved from the auction were guaranteed 15 percent more than the highest-paid player at their franchise. The 15 percent premium meant Tendulkar would fetch US$1,121,250 per season, which is still short of Dhoni’s salary.
The Highest bids: Mahendra Singh Dhoni Chennai $1.5 million and Andrew Symonds (Australia) Hyderabad $1.35 million(I was surprised).
There is something amiss – no England players available at auction, with its players committing to national team and county duty.
from Vishesh :)
from Reema :)
15 Comments
February 21, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Dhoni’s going high was expected. But Symonds was indeed a shocker because I for one hadn’t even expected that he’d be interested to come to India. I’m sure he knows that the Indians won’t be very kind to him after all that has happened. Maybe the teams bidded high for him because of the controversy issue too. He’s a good cricketer though, better than Ponting right now if I can say that.
February 21, 2008 at 4:59 pm
$1.35M or $1.5M or whatever is all good money anyway
February 21, 2008 at 5:53 pm
SRK has Shoaib, Umar Gul and ishant Sharma. I know which team I am going to support
by the way Prerna how come SRK preferred kolkata on Delhi; his home town?
February 21, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I have a feeling that they overpaid for Dhoni big time – a result of all the hype. While he is good, not sure if he is this good.
February 21, 2008 at 9:36 pm
well they are trying to match football with all this isn’t it…but cricket isn’t just football…you don’t have that warmth which football has…
February 22, 2008 at 5:03 am
arnt we oversaturated with cricket already??
best of luck fans
February 22, 2008 at 11:14 am
@Ammar: I don’t think SRK preferred Kolkata. I think they just simply gave their names in and the BCCI decided which team went to whom. I think that.
February 22, 2008 at 11:56 am
Ish,Ammar,
SRK wanted to buy Mumbai but could afford only Kolkata.The teams were decided through auction.
Prax,actually no.As long as our guys are doing well
iamvisheshur,T-20 can generate the same feeling.Although I still have doubts-can T-20 be called cricket?
Arunk,what I admire most about Dhoni is his temprament.His attitude places him above the rest.
February 22, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ish, I guess Symonds was paid that much for entertainment value
Forget the controversy he is an excellent player and has proved his worth in all forms of the game.
February 22, 2008 at 12:43 pm
You are absolutely right Rajiv!
February 22, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Prerna: I think the logic – of greater allegiance to county cricket and timetable clashes – extended by the English team is quite lame. Those are not mutually exclusive options. I am sure they will change their mind.
That said Flintoff, for instance, truly believes that his best years are ahead of him. At 30-something, most other world cricketers have played a lot of international cricket due to the selection procedures being markedly different and being able to attract stars at a fairly young age to the national team. So may be the Cricket Board here should try and reconsider its position on selection. After all it is not as if the English team is ruling the cricket world at the moment!
February 22, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Thanks Shefaly.I agree,the English players will change their mind.
February 26, 2008 at 4:18 pm
IPL is going to be a big success in a country like india. It wuld gradually be interesting for other countries as their top batsmen can play in IPL. important is the money flowing over IPL. View all the teams http://www.iplblogger.com/index.php?q=node/30
February 28, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Prerna: We did not have to wait long.
See this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/7268341.stm
February 29, 2008 at 11:13 am
Sooner than expected Shefaly