Chennai, Feb 4: The IPL players' auction for the sixth edition of the tournament held today was not exactly a grand affair but chairman Rajeev Shukla said that franchises wanted to only fill specific slots in their squads, adding that a full-fledged auction will be held next year.
"It's not a full-fledged auction, that will be held next year. The franchises this time only wanted to fill the places in the squads. It's not like it has gone down and all," Shukla told reporters after the auction.
Rising Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell emerged as the surprise million-dollar buy, fetching a whopping USD one million (Rs 5.3 crore) from Mumbai Indians. Asked about the Pakistani players' absence, coming in the backdrop of the recent tension at the LoC, Shukla said, "We are not against Pakistani players. There are Pakistani coaches, umpires, supports staffs in the IPL.
"But as of now the players are not in our mind. We will discuss that with the franchises and see." And about Luke Pomersbach, who was bought by Kings XI Punjab and who was detained by the Delhi police last year following allegations that he had assaulted a US citizen, Shukla said, "That controversy is over, compromise has taken place. We are only responsible for players' behaviour on the field."
Venky Mysore, Kolkata Knight Riders' chief executive, said the inclusion of Sri Lankan spinner Senaka Senanayake will add a new dimension to their attack. "Sunil Narine is available, almost all of our players are. But the success we had with him and our conditions, we thought we could intensify that kind of attack. We are happy with buying Senanayake, who will add a new dimension to our set-up. And Ryan McLaren as well who will add to our pace back-up," Mysore said.
Gurunath Meiyappan, who was at the Chennai Super Kings table, said they were happy with the addition of youngsters. "We wanted to pick some youngsters, wanted more pace. (Dirk) Nannes is not young but he is very experienced. The others, (Ben) Laughlin and Jason (Holder) are young. Chris Morris has a big future ahead of him. We only wanted bowlers in this auction," Meiyappan said.
Shilpa Shetty, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, said, "We made sure we invested in the right players to fill in the gaps. We're very happy with the auction. The problem we found last year was we lacked in the bowling attack. So we set out to fix that."
Rahul Dravid, who is Rajasthan Royals mentor, said, "We're happy, a couple of things we wanted to address from the last season... our death bowling from the last season was disappointing. I thought taking (James) Faulkner and (Fidel) Edwards would help us address the issue."
New outfit Sunrisers Hyderabad's co-mentor, Kris Srikkanth, said the team has good balance. "We hope to perform in the coming season which will be our first effort in IPL. We have good balance now as we were able to acquire perfect talent for each slot. We are extremely happy.
On picking Sri Lankan all-rounder Thisara Perera, Srikkanth said, "He was a good buy. Coach Tom Moody was Sri Lanka coach earlier, he knows the capabilities of Thisara. He adds strength to our plan for successes in the coming season."
In a statement issued later in the evening, Royal Challengers Bangalore said they were "delighted with the purchase of new players in the auction". "RCB have strengthened their bowling line up considerably apart from adding classy all-rounders which provides a great amount of flexibility in playing squad selection.
"The formidable RCB batting line up will be benefited with additional support in all departments of the game," the statement said.
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