Captaincy was the hot property of IPL mega auction: ₹83.5 crore spent on 4 captains; Bowlers took 44% of the money, Chahal is the most expensive spinner

89% amount to international players Bidding took place on 84 players on the first day, 72 were sold, while 12 remained unsold. Of the 72 players, 42 were capped i.e. international players, while 30 were uncapped players. Rs 414.9 crore was spent on capped players, which means on average a player got Rs 9.87 crore. On the other hand, the average value of uncapped players remained only Rs 1.76 crore.

Rishabh Pant was the top capped player, he was bought by Lucknow for Rs 27 crore. While Rasikh Salam remained the top uncapped player, he was bought by Bengaluru for Rs 6 crore. The price of 13 uncapped players could not touch Rs 1 crore.

Foreign players got an average of ₹1.74 crore more than Indians Among the 72 players, there were 48 players from India and 24 from abroad. Rs 284.2 crore were spent on Indians, which means the average value of a player was Rs 5.92 crore. Foreigners were charged Rs 183.75 crore, which means their average value was Rs 7.66 crore, Rs 1.74 crore more than that of Indians. Jos Buttler was the most expensive foreigner, he was bought by Gujarat for Rs 15.75 crore.

Chahal is the most expensive spinner, pacers become rich About 44% of the auction amount i.e. Rs 204.90 crore was spent on bowlers. 10 teams bought 31 bowlers, which included 11 spinners and 20 pacers. Among spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal was sold for Rs 18 crore and Noor Ahmed for Rs 10 crore. Apart from these two, the price of other spinners could not even touch Rs 6 crore. 4 spinners were sold for just under Rs 50 lakh. The average value of spinners was Rs 4.29 crore.

The franchise spent Rs 157.65 crore for 20 pacers. All the bowlers became millionaires, meaning the average value of the pacers was Rs 7.88 crore. Left arm pacer Arshdeep Singh was the most expensive at Rs 18 crore. Trent Boult, Joffra Archer and Josh Hazlewood remained on top among foreigners. All three were bought by different teams for Rs 12.50 crore.

There was less demand for all-rounders Most of the time, a lot of money is spent on all-rounders in the auction, but in Jeddah only 2 all-rounders could earn more than Rs 10 crore. Among these too, there was an intense bidding war for Venkatesh Iyer in Bengaluru and Kolkata, due to which his price reached Rs 23.75 crore.

Marcus Stoinis was the most expensive among foreign all-rounders with a price of Rs 11 crore. Punjab bought him. Rs 91.75 crore was spent on 16 all-rounders in the auction. That means his average value was Rs 5.70 crore, which was about Rs 1 crore less than the average value of the bowlers.

A lot of money was spent on wicketkeepers too Before the auction, there was a shortage of wicketkeeper in 5 teams, so the teams spent a lot of money on wicketkeepers also. 13 wicketkeepers were sold for Rs 98.95 crore, their average value was Rs 7.61 crore. The price of 6 wicketkeepers has crossed Rs 10 crore, the most expensive Rishabh Pant is also a wicketkeeper. However, the teams also bought 4 uncapped wicketkeepers for Rs 95 lakhs.

The price of 11 out of 12 batsmen could not even cross Rs 10 crore. Teams spent only Rs 72.35 crore in the auction on 12 batsmen. If we remove the name of Shreyas Iyer who cost Rs 26.75 crore, the teams paid only Rs 45.6 crore to 11 batsmen. The price of no batsman could touch Rs 10 crore, the average value of 11 batsmen was only Rs 4.14 crore. The main reason for this was that most of the teams had retained their key batsmen before the auction.

Money was wasted on these 4 captains Teams spent Rs 83.50 crore on Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Jos Buttler. Pant was the most expensive player, Shreyas was the most expensive batsman, while Butler proved to be the most expensive foreigner. Delhi bought Rahul for Rs 14 crore, this is considered a very smart deal from the auction point of view. Pant has captained Delhi, Shreyas has captained Kolkata and Rahul has captained Lucknow, while Butler is the white ball captain of England.