I’ve been following the startup of the Indian Premier League with intrigue. This is a major stepping stone for Cricket. The sponsorships are huge and with the likes of James Packer in the picture (he owns one of the teams), it’s only going to get bigger.

The auction for players was held yesterday. Rather than having a lottery system to allocate players, they had a closed auction where teams were only allowed one bid per player. With a $5 million dollar salary cap, this meant that some players have received some extraordinary bids with 8 players becoming instant millionaires (if they weren’t already). Three of those were ‘marquee’ players who received an automatic salary of 15% more than the highest paid player on their team.

Mahendra Dhoni (Ind) $1,650,000
Andrew Symonds (Aus) $1,470,000
Sachin Tendulkar (Ind) $1,223,600
Sourav Ganguly (Ind) $1,184,500
Rahul Dravid (Ind) $1,128,150
Sanath Jayasuriya (SL) $1,064,000
Ishant Sharma (Ind) $1,030,000
Irfan Pathan (Ind) $1,010,000
Brett Lee (Aus) $982,000
Jacques Kallis (SAf) $981,000
RP Singh (Ind) $950,000
Harbhajan Singh (Ind) $927,000
Yuvraj Singh (Ind) $927,000
Virender Sehwag (Ind) $911,950
Robin Uthappa (Ind) $875,000
Chris Gayle (WI) $872,000
Rohit Sharma (Ind) $821,000
Gautam Gambhir (Ind) $793,000
Adam Gilchrist (Aus) $765,000
Kumar Sangakkara (SL) $764,000
Brendon McCullum (NZ) $763,000
Manoj Tiwary (Ind) $740,000
David Hussey (Aus) $740,000
Mohammad Kaif (Ind) $738,000
Albie Morkel (SAf) $737,000
Shahid Afridi (Pak) $736,000
Jacob Oram (NZ) $736,000
Suresh Raina (Ind) $711,000
Mohammad Asif (Pak) $709,000
Shantha Sreesanth (Ind) $681,000
Daniel Vettori (NZ) $681,000
Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) $656,000
Herschelle Gibbs (SAf) $627,000
Shaun Pollock (SAf) $601,000
Dinesh Karthik (Ind) $573,000
Cameron White (Aus) $546,000
Shoaib Malik (Pak) $545,000
Anil Kumble (Ind) $526,000
Yusuf Pathan (Ind) $519,000
Mahela Jayawardene (SL) $519,000
Graeme Smith (SAf) $518,000
Shane Warne (Aus) $492,000
Zaheer Khan (Ind) $491,000
Mark Boucher (SAf) $491,000
Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) $464,000
Murali Kartik (Ind) $460,000
Ricky Ponting (Aus) $436,000
Piyush Chawla (Ind) $435,000
VVS Laxman (Ind) $410,000
Matthew Hayden (Aus) $409,000
Ajit Agarkar (Ind) $382,000
Stephen Fleming (NZ) $381,000
Michael Hussey (Aus) $381,000
Glenn McGrath (Aus) $381,000
Lasith Malinga (SL) $380,000
Parthiv Patel (Ind) $355,000
Nathan Bracken (Aus) $354,000
Dale Steyn (SAf) $354,000
AB de Villiers (SAf) $328,000
Munaf Patel (Ind) $300,000
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL) $273,000
Joginder Sharma (Ind) $246,000
Farveez Maharoof (SL) $246,000
Younis Khan (Pak) $245,000
Ramnaresh Sarwan (WI) $245,000
Simon Katich (Aus) $218,000
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI) $218,000
Justin Langer (Aus) $218,000
Chaminda Vaas (SL) $217,000
Makhaya Ntini (Saf) $215,000
Scott Styris (NZ) $190,000
Loots Bosman (SAf) $190,000
Ramesh Powar (Ind) $185,000
Wasim Jaffer (Ind) $164,000
Kamran Akmal (Pak) $164,000
Umar Gul (Pak) $163,000
Dilhara Fernando (SL) $163,000
Nuwan Zoysa (SL) $120,000
Chamara Silva (SL) $109,000

What’s interesting is that Ricky Pointing, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath, and Shane Warne faired miserably considering their status on the Aussie World Championship team. What’s even funnier is that David Hussey is worth twice as much as his brother Mike even though David can’t break into the Australian International Team.

It’s still no where near as huge as the English Premier League but it’s a good start :)

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