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Indian Premier League

Second IPL auction on March 11

Ajay S Shankar

March 5, 2008

The Indian Premier League will hold a second players' auction in Mumbai on March 11, when players who were not part of the first auction will be offered to the eight franchises. There is speculation some English players not centrally contracted to the ECB will be involved, though a franchise representative said the teams were yet to get a list of players up for auction.

There have been reports suggesting a keen interest in the IPL among English players, who have so far been excluded from the tournament because the seasons overlap. Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said last week though the league would stand by its informal arrangement with the ECB this season, it could become more difficult to do so in future.

The auction is within the scope of the IPL's rules, which specify that "if more than one franchise is interested in a particular player, the DLF IPL may hold a further auction to determine which franchise will sign that player."

However, the kind of money to be put up this time is unlikely to be anywhere near the first auction, on February 20, which raked in US$42 million. Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, confirmed to Cricinfo that franchises will have to follow the original purchase cap of US$5 million.

While most teams crossed that cap on paper in the first auction, the amount of money they actually spent was much less. The IPL rules say that if a player is expected to be either completely unavailable or available for less than four of the IPL matches in 2008, 25% of the player fee bid for that player in the auction will count against the $5m purse. So for a player who cost $400,000 and who is unavailable under the conditions above, there will be a deduction of $300,000 from the $5m purse. This is especially relevant to teams that have bought Australian players, who are unlikely to be available for all or part of the first season.

"Still, this will leave most of us with very little room for an additional purchase," said a franchise representative.

One team that would benefit most from the second option is Rajasthan Royals, which spent less than the minimum cap of $3.3 million in the first auction in Mumbai. "We always had an aggressive plan. It's just that no one else saw it coming. We were clear that the minimum cap was for the whole process and not just for the primary auction," said Fraser Castellino, the CEO of the Royals. It may be no more than coincidence that the franchise is owned by Emerging Media, a consortium that is based in the United Kingdom.

Ajay Shankar is deputy editor of Cricinfo in Bangalore

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