Robin Uthappa emerged as the biggest surprise package on Saturday during the IPL auction, with the Pune and Kochi franchises going head to head to win him over. Eventually Pune bagged the Karnataka player, but not before the bid touched $2.1 million. Attacking middle order bat Saurabh Tiwary was another player who may have tumbled out of his chair, as his bid touched $1.6 million.

Asked if he had overpaid for Uthappa. Sushant Roy, the Pune team owner said, ?Uthappa is a great T20 player and he can also keep wickets. We also thought of his ability as a batsman and that’s why we bid that kind of money on him.?

Kochi too looked determined to pocket his services but gave up the chase once the price went above the $2-million mark.

Saurabh Tiwary?s bid led to a bit of controversy involving the Vijay Mallya led Royal Challengers, Bangalore, and Wadia-led Punjab Kings XI. Tiwary?s price had shot up to $1.6 million from a base of $100,000. A last minute bid by the Punjab team, which came in just with the auctioneer?s hammer went down, led to an animated conversation between Siddharth Mallya and Preeti Zinta and left Vijay Mallya upset with the auctioneer. The auctioneer decided to reopen the bid. All this drama was for a player who is still a greenhorn. ?We were in the corner and our bid was on time, I don?t think the auctioneer saw us. But we decided to let it go in the end,? said Zinta.

A second surprise came when the Kochi team snatched Muttaiah Muralitharan for $1.1 million, a move that disappointed his former team, Chennai Super Kings. Talking about the loss, a CSK official said, ?We worked at keeping the old team intact and tried to buy back as many of our players as we could. A great disappointment was losing him. I saw the reaction from the Kochi team and I realised they were not about to give up on the bid.?

In fact Kochi and Pune really fought hard and made sure that the marquee teams like Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers and Chennai Superkings did not walk away with all the glory. While Kochi bagged players like Brendon McCullum, Sreesanth, Brad Hodge and Ravindra Jadeja, Pune opted for Yuvraj, Uthappa and Graeme Smith.

But Chargers bagged Peterson, Dale Steyn, Kumar Sangakkara and JP Duminy, and Mumbai chose Andrew Symonds to team up with the likes of Sachin and Pollard.