Senior spinner Harbhajan Singh and middle-order batsman Kedar Jadhav, along with Australians Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell, have been bracketed in the highest base price category of Rs 2 crore for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) auction in Chennai on February 18. There will be 292 players, who will go under the hammer, with 61 slots in eight franchises up for grabs. The IPL governing council has pruned the list of players.
A total of 164 Indian players, 125 overseas players and three from associate nations have been enlisted for the auctions.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) has the highest number of slots available (13) while Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) has only three vacancies. Kings XI Punjab go into the auction with the highest purse (Rs 53.1 crore) while Sunrisers can spend a little less than 11 crore (10.75 crore). Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will have an interesting auction with a 22.7 crore purse and seven slots to fill. Of the seven slots vacant in the CSK, one is an overseas player slot. Both Harbhajan and Jadhav were released by Chennai Super Kings this year.
Twelve players have been put in the Rs 1.5 crore-list and 11 players have been added in the Rs 1 crore list, including Hanuma Vihari and Umesh Yadav. Released RCB player Aaron Finch (Australia) has also been listed under the Rs 1 crore bracket.
Sachin Tendulkar's son Arjun, a left-arm fast bowler, has also been included in the pruned list, in the lowest base price category of Rs 20 lakh. Kerala domestic cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin, Tamil Nadu’s Shahrukh Khan and G Periyasamy are the other prominent uncapped players in the Rs 20 lakh bracket. The full list of players up for grabs in available here.
Apart from Maxwell and Smith, other overseas recruits in the highest base price category included Shakib-al-Hasan (Bangladesh) and English cricketers Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Liam Plunkett, Jason Roy and Mark Wood.
The auction will start at 3 pm IST.