Oz, Pak players snubbed at IPL 3 auction

Zeecric Bureau Mumbai: The Indian Premier League auction turned fortunes of many with Kieron Pollard, Shane Bond, Wayne Parnell and Kemar Roach grabbing multi-crore amounts while the Pakistani and Australian players hardly had any takers. Three out of four players in the first group were unsold in the form of England’s Graeme Swann, Australia’s Brad Haddin and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi. A trend that followed throughout the bidding process, the team owners were clearly not interested in the players Down Under owing to their commitments to other national duties and neither did the Pakistan players generate enough zeal for the same. Kieron Pollard, on the other hand, caused the first tie-breaker of the auction. Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, KKR and Chennai Super Kings were desperate to grab the West Indian batsman. The player was finally sold at USD 750,000 to Mumbai Indians.The Pakistani and Australian players were completely snubbed, the only exception being Damien Martyn of Australia, who was grabbed by Rajasthan Royals. For the first time, Under-19 players were introduced to the franchisees on draft, i.e. - A fixed amount (in this case Rs 8 lakh) was allotted to the players and a lottery was conducted to decide on which team had the first chance to grab the youngsters. Three players, Harshal Patel, Harmeet Singh and U-19 captain Ashok Minaria were lapped up by Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore respectively.Also, Mohammad Kaif was finally bought by Kings XI Punjab for USD 250,000 in the second round of the auction. The team also bought back their former player South Africa’s Yusuf Abdullah. The second highest bid of Group B went to West Indies bowler Kemar Roach for USD 720,000 to Deccan Chargers. The last player of the group, England bowler Eoin Morgan, was sold to Royal Challengers Bangalore for USD 220,000. The second group’s bidding began with the auctioning of Wayne Parnell, who went to Delhi Daredevils for USD 610,000 (base price USD 200,000).