18 Indian; 53 overseas players up for sale tomorrow

Bangalore, Jan 8 (PTI) A total of 18 Indian and 53
overseas players will be up for grabs on the second day of the
Indian Premier League players' auction here on Sunday, in
south Indian state of Karnataka.

On the second day, the franchises will have a remaining
cumulative salary cap of USD 19.5 million to be used both in
the auction room and to sign uncapped Indian players after the
day's proceedings.
This effectively means that a maximum of 71 players, if
all franchises do take their full allocation of overseas
players, will be up for sale in the second round of bidding at
the ITC Gardenia hotel, according to a BCCI statement.
After the first day of bidding, five of the franchises
have retained a total of 12 players (seven Indians and five
overseas players) in advance of the auction. The total salary
cap available across all the 10 franchises at the start of
the day was USD 72.3 million.
During the day, 72 players were sold for a cumulative
hammer price of USD 52.8 million. Of these, 30 were Indians
and 42 overseas players, according to the BCCI release.
On the opening day, dashing India opener Gautam Gambhir
became the costliest cricketer in the IPL by fetching a
whopping USD 2.4 million (approx Rs 11.04 crore) as Indian
players proved to be the biggest draw with three others going
for more than USD two million.
In a high-profile auction, where Bollywood stars and
corporate bigwigs were locked in a bidding war, Kolkata Knight
Riders (KKR) bought Gambhir for the mind-boggling sum, beating
the previous high set by the English duo of Kevin Pietersen
and Andrew Flintoff (USD 1.55 million) last season.
KKR proved to be the big spender of the day by also
buying hard-hitting all-rounders Yusuf Pathan (Rs 9.66 crore)
and Jacques Kallis (Rs 5.06 crore) for the fourth edition of
event to be held from April 8 to May 20.
Three other Indian players -- Yusuf (USD 2.1 million),
Rohit Sharma (USD 2 million) and Robin Uthappa (2.1 million)
also crossed the two million mark.
But there were some surprise names in the unsold list
with former India and KKR captain Sourav Ganguly, West Indies
batting star Chris Gayle and legendary Brian Lara failing
to find a buyer.
In the fourth edition of the T20 league, each team will
play seven matches at home, and seven away. Each side has nine
opponents and will play five of those at home and away and
will play two at home only, and will play the remaining two
away only. This will produce a total of seventy league
matches.
There will be one league table, as in previous years, and
the top four teams at the end of the league stage will qualify
for the play-off matches. There will be four play-off matches.
Which team plays which opponents (home and away/home only
/away only) will be determined by a random draw that will take
place tomorrow before the start of day two of the auction. PTI
SHN SSC
SSC