IPL player bids make for dream teams

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Mumbai, Feb 20: Picture this: Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar and Australia’s Ricky Ponting will play under the captaincy of India’s Sourav Ganguly in the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL), for team Kolkata.

Seventy-eight players from across the globe went up for grabs on Wednesday at the IPL player auction held here. This list, however, did not include the five ‘iconic’ players—Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh—who are already assigned to their respective home teams and will be paid 15% more than the highest-paid member of their team. The eight teams are Delhi (owned by GMR), Mumbai (RIL), Chennai (India Cements), Bangalore (UB Group), Mohali (Preity Zinta-Ness Wadia), Jaipur (Emerging Media), Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle) and Kolkata (Shah Rukh Khan).

Each franchisee can spend a maximum of $5 million to buy all its players. The contracts are for three years and the bid amounts are per player, per year. Each team will have a separate coach.

Lalit Modi, chairman, IPL, said, “People are using different strategies to build their squads. Some consider talent and quality, others look at factors like glamour and endorsements. Some bids have gone surprisingly low and some are surprisingly high. MS Dhoni and Andrew Symonds are the two players who went on every table.”

SRK’s Kolkata could prove the biggest crowd puller. Besides Ganguly as captain, SRK acquired Shoaib Akhtar (for $425,000), Ricky Ponting ($400,000), Brendan McCullum ($700,000), Chris Gayle ($800,000), Ajit Agarkar ($330,000), David Hussey ($625,000), Murali Karthik ($425,000) and rising star bowler Ishant Sharma ($950,000).

With that line-up, analysts say SRK could make a killing from a home match. When Kolkata plays at Eden Gardens (capacity: 1.2 lakh) and with an average ticket priced at Rs 500, SRK stands to mop up around Rs 6 crore.

Also, with SRK endorsing brands like Pepsi, Hyundai, Nokia, Airtel, Compaq and many others, these brands are expected to sponsor the Kolkata team in various capacities.

Ashish Bhasin, executive vice-president, IMAG Lowe Worldwide, said, "The Rs 1,000-crore sports marketing sector will further grow this year thanks to the IPL auction. There will be an incremental increase in ad revenues in 2008. My guess is that there will be an increase of Rs 400 crore from IPL."

Navin Khemka, vice-president, ZenithOptimedia, said, "IPL ad spends will be led more by corporates wanting to dominate the race for what everyone believes is the next big revolution in cricket. Apart from regular advertisers on cricket like the cola majors and mobile service providers, this first year of hype and hysteria will see sponsorships sold out to new surprise categories and stakeholders."

Air ad spends for IPL would cross Rs 200 crore in 2008. Rates on television channels would cross Rs 2 lakh per 10 seconds. "This would be at par with the rates of the T-20 World Cup, which India won last year," he added.

Here’s how the bidding went: Delhi acquired Daniel Vettori (for $625,000), Shoaib Malik ($500,000), Mohammad Asif ($650,000), Dinesh Karthik ($525,000), AB deVilliers ($300,000), Farveez Maharoof ($225,000), Tilakeratne Dilshan ($250,000), Goutam Gambhir ($725,000) and Manoj Tiwary ($675,000). The team has been christened Delhi Daredevils with Virender Sehwag as captain.

Mumbai, which has iconic player Sachin Tendulkar as captain, bagged Sanath Jayasuriya ($975,000), Harbhajan Singh ($850,000), Shaun Pollock ($550,000), and Robin Uthappa ($800,000), Lasith Malinga ($350,000) and Dilhara Fernando ($150,000).

Chennai, with no iconic player, bagged the most expensive player, Indian captain MS Dhoni, for $1.5 million. The team also has Muttiah Muralidaran ($600,000), Jacob Oram ($675,000), Stephen Fleming ($350,000), Parthiv Patel ($325,000), Albie Morkel ($675,000), Joginder Sharma ($225,000), Suresh Raina ($650,000), and Makhaya Ntini ($200,000).

Bangalore, with iconic player Rahul Dravid as captain, acquired Anil Kumble ($500,000), Jacques Kallis ($900,000), Zaheer Khan ($450,000), Mark Boucher ($450,000), Cameron White ($500,000), Wasim Jaffer ($150,000), Nathan Bracken ($325,000), and Dale Steyn ($325,000).

Mohali, with iconic player Yuvraj Singh as captain, bagged Mahela Jayawardhane ($475,000), Kumar Sangakarra ($700,000), Brett Lee ($900,000), S Sreesanth ($625,000), Irfan Pathan ($925,000), Ramesh Powar ($170,000), and Piyush Chawla ($400,000).

Jaipur, again with no iconic player, acquired Shane Warne ($450,000), Graeme Smith ($475,000), Younis Khan ($225,000), Kamran Akmal ($150,000), Yusuf Pathan ($475,000), Mohammed Kaif ($675,000), and Munaf Patel ($275,000).

Team Hyderabad had an interesting twist. VVS Laxman (acquired for $375,000 and named captain) is understood to have given up his iconic status so that the team could have more money to buy players. And it did just that.