All eyes on Jadeja at IPL auction

Team owners, a few iconic players and number-crunching executives will walk the razor's edge, while 144 cricketers are set to go under the hammer during the Indian Premier League's player auction at the ITC Royal Gardenia Hotel, here on Saturday.

The teams, numbering nine after the disbanding of the Kochi Tuskers Kerala outfit, found their core personnel during last year's auction. Only a few names amidst the latest list, will trickle off auctioneer Richard Madley's tongue, and make the cut as managements fit in those rare missing links in their respective squads.

The buzz is big on Ravindra Jadeja and he is expected to gift a lighter wallet to whoever wins the bidding war. Teams ranging from defending champion Chennai Super Kings to Pune Warriors are all interested in the all-rounder, who played for Kochi Tuskers last year.

Pegged at a base price of $100,000, Jadeja is likely to attract a hefty price, within the $2 million cap, which quite a few team owners have unlike Pune Warriors and Royal Challengers Bangalore, who have retained Sourav Ganguly and Chris Gayle respectively. The Saurashtra player might well end up in a tie-breaker situation if two teams bid at the maximum cap of $2 million.

Eight Indians in fray

In the bidding list, eight Indians are in the fray, all from the erstwhile Kochi Tuskers team, with the exception of V.R.V. Singh. It also remains to be seen whether franchises will be keen on V.V.S. Laxman, who has a reserve price of $400,000. Last year, the names of Brian Lara and Ganguly evoked a deathly silence. Among the rest, R. Vinay Kumar will draw attention, especially from Royal Challengers Bangalore that is keen to regain its local fervour. Last year too, RCB's chief mentor Anil Kumble and the rest did bid for Vinay, before a tight purse meant that Bangalore had to yield to Kochi's demands. Besides Kumble, Rahul Dravid too will be present at the venue in his present role as captain of Rajasthan Royals.

Overseas contingent

The bulging overseas component (136) in the list features Mahela Jayawardene, Muttiah Muralitharan, Brendon McCullum, Peter Siddle, James Anderson, Graeme Swann and Mark Boucher to name a few, while former Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood is now a British citizen and comes in as an ‘English' player.

The fancied names may be many, but Ireland's Kevin O'Brien, who slammed the England bowlers during a match-winning century in a World Cup game here at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, could well draw in the heavy dollars.

Though the foreigners are a massive presence, the majority will go unsold as teams are allowed only 11 overseas players, and most outfits have already slotted in their key ‘non-Indian' players.

A team like Pune Warriors, that is likely to miss its indisposed skipper Yuvraj Singh, might look at gaining a key foreign player.

The IPL's top-brass and team owners were huddled in a meeting about the rules pertaining to the auction, late on Friday night and more midnight oil is bound to be burnt as rival think-tanks slot in their varied choices.

And for men like Jadeja, Vinay and Parthiv Patel, who are nursing the belated delight of an Indian victory in Australia, it will be time to check their phones and the internet while tracking their market-value in the IPL, which is hustling towards its fifth season, commencing at Chennai on April 4.