All eyes will be glued to the television screens tomorrow as the INDIAN T20 LEAGUE 2020 auction will take place in Kolkata on December 19. All the franchises have released a number of players and would want to acquire specific players for specific roles. While Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab have released a lot of key players and are looking to build their team from scratch, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings have retained their core squad.
The player auctions ahead of each season have produced some exciting moments. In some auctions Uncapped players turned out to be a big winner while sometimes big names have gone unsold.
As we move closer to the pre-season auction, we take a look back at the important moments that took place in the INDIAN T20 LEAGUE auctions throughout the 12 seasons.
MS Dhoni, the first millionaire of INDIAN T20 LEAGUE:
MS Dhoni entered the first ever Indian T20 League auction as one of the marquee players. Dhoni, who, won the World T20 title in 2007, got the highest-winning bid at the INDIAN T20 LEAGUE 2008 auction. He was picked by Chennai Super Kings for ₹10.73 crores which was 3.75 times his base price set at ₹2.86 crores. The former Indian skipper lead the team to three titles.
Shane Warne, the first player sold:
Shane Warne was the name in the auction pool. The legendary spinner became the first player to be sold in the history of INDIAN T20 LEAGUE when he was purchased by the Rajasthan Royals for his base price of ₹3.21 Crores. The former Australian player led Rajasthan Royals to INDIAN T20 LEAGUE 2008 title.
Ben Stokes, most expensive overseas player:
Stokes was a centre of attraction for the 2017 season and was one of the biggest names in the auction. Supergiant got hold of him for Rs 14.5 crore, making him the most expensive player in the INDIAN T20 LEAGUE auction history. The Englishman proved to be a superb buy as Stokes scored 316 runs from 12 matches and claimed 12 wickets. Stokes took the MVP award in INDIAN T20 LEAGUE 2017. He later joined Rajasthan Royals.
Krunal Pandya, most expensive uncapped player:
Krunal Pandya made his debut in the 2016 edition where he put some impressive performances for Mumbai Indians. He thrived for Mumbai Indians in INDIAN T20 LEAGUE 2017 with a man of the match performance in the final. Krunal placed his name for the 2018 auction with a base price of 40 Lakh. Both Mumbai and Bangalore went into the bidding war for the allrounder but in the end Mumbai Indians successfully signed the all-rounder for a record INR 8.8 Crore for an uncapped player.
