Raina to play for Rajkot.
By Dileep Thekkethil
The first day of the Indian Premier League auction for the next two seasons saw the Indian limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his former Chennai Super Kings teammate Suresh Raina bought by Pune and Rajkot franchises, respectively.
The auction for the two newly formed franchises of IPL began on Tuesday with the Pune and Rajkot teams making a majestic entry by buying two top players from the last years IPL team, the Chennai Super Kings, which is now suspended for alleged involvement in betting.
The auction will fill the vacuum created by the suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals over betting scandal as players associated with the two teams can now play for either Pune or Rajkot.
The list of players from Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings were made available for the two new teams so that they can pick five players each.
Earlier, the Indian Cricket Board has announced that New Rising, a consortium led by Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group had successfully bought the Pune team whereas the Rajkot team was bought by Mobile makers Intex in a reverse bidding process.
Pune, given the first chance to select the players, went ahead choosing Dhoni for Rs. 12.5 crores $$1.86 million), who captained the Chennai Super Kings for eight consecutive seasons of IPL.
The other key players bagged by Pune are Australia captain Steve Smith, South Africa’s Faf du Plessis and India batsman Ajinkya Rahane and in form off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.
On the other hand, the Rajkot team has bought New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum, Australia all-rounder James Faulkner, former West Indies captain Dwayne Bravo and India’s spin-bowling all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja to play for the upcoming two seasons of the IPL.
The two new franchises will have to float 390 million rupees ($5.82 million) from their total capital of 660 million for the next year’s IPL auctions when they have to mandatorily select the remaining players of the suspended teams.
Since the beginning of the IPl, there has been many allegations about the misuse of money and illegal betting involving team management and even players.
In July, a panel set up by the Supreme Court recommended suspending the franchise owners of the two teams following an illegal betting and spot-fixing scandal surrounding the IPL, the ninth edition of which will be played from April 9 to May 29.