IPL’s ‘auction of a lifetime’

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Mumbai, Feb 21: The auction room in the plush, five-star Mumbai hotel on Wednesday was heavily guarded. Even the media had a hard time entering the area. And the man at the high alter of the pricey IPL bidding war worthy of any Sotheby’s auction was Richard Madley.

A former cricketer and now auctioneer by profession, Madley has sounded the gavel in London and New York, including auctions for valuable works of art. “But today, I conducted an auction of a lifetime. It was the first ever and I certainly hope that it’s not the last,” said an enthusiastic Madley after the IPL teams were finalised.

“The ambience was very friendly. Unlike other auctions, people actually applauded when their competitors won a player. There was fair play throughout the day. People were smiling—even after spending $41 million! This format established some new and some very high prices,” he added.

There were some restrictions, though. Franchisees could spend at most $5 million to cobble together their dream teams. Players were divided into categories based on whether they were batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders or wicket keepers. Madley said most bidders built balanced teams with players that would win matches—not for their glamour quotient.

Players’ names were drawn from a hat. And although Madley punctuated the proceedings with details about each player, he said, “Most players needed no introduction as the franchisees did their homework very well. And the moment the name and base price were announced, they would start bidding by raising their placards, which had the name of the team written on it.”

Sources disclose that for every player, Mumbai was the last one to bid. They never started any bid but waited for everyone else to finish before placing their own. Shah Rukh Khan was hell bent on Ishant Sharma. Team Kolkata, owned by SRK, literally outbid everyone else for him, finally winning the Indian fast bowler for $950,000.