Chennai buys Dhoni for $1.35 mn

The million dollar barrier was breached in the opening round itself when the Chennai franchisee of the Indian Premier League (IPL) bought Twenty20 World Cup winning captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for a staggering $1.5 million (approximately Rs six crore) here today.

Veteran Sri Lankan opener Sanath Jayasuriya, at 39 among the oldest in the 77-player auction, was bought by Mukesh Ambani's Team Mumbai for $9,75,000, the second-highest winning bid after two rounds.

Team Mumbai, which did not successfully bid for any of the six players in the opening round, went hammer and tongs in the second round and outbid others to capture the services of India's number one limited overs slow bowler Harbhajan Singh for $850,000.

The side already has the services of icon player Sachin Tendulkar who was not part of the pool at Wednesday's auction.

The Mumbai franchisee will now have to tread carefully in getting the remaining players for its team as they have exhausted $3.5 million out of the $5 million cap in buying out 'Matara Marauder' Jayasuriya and 'Turbanator ' Harbhajan.

The cap includes the amount to be paid to Tendulkar which would be 15 per cent over and above their highest player bid in the auction, which after two rounds is the winning bid for Jayasuriya.

Indian Test captain Anil Kumble was bought over by Team Bangalore, his home city franchisee owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, for $500,000, double his base price.

Sri Lanka's highly successful wicket keeper-batsman Kumar Sangakkara will represent Team Mohali, to be led by icon player Yuvraj Singh. Sangakkara was sold for $700,000, as compared to his base price of $250,000.

In the first round, Team Hyderabad successfully bid for the swashbuckling Australian wicket keeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist for the same amount as Sangakkara. The reserve price for Gilchrist, who is retiring from all international cricket at the end of the ongoing triangular series in Australia , was $300,000.

Andrew Symonds was bought by Hyderabad franchisee of the Indian Premier League for $1.35 million.

Retired Australian leg spin great Shane Warne's winning bid, by Team Jaipur (Emerging Media), was the same as his reserve price (USD 450,000). Warne is 38 and has already retired from international cricket.

Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar (winning bid by Team Kolkata of Shah Rukh Khan for $425,000), Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene (successfully bid for by Team Mohali of Preity Zinta Group for $475,000) and his teammate and the worlds highest wicket taker in Tests Muttiah Muralitharan (Winning bid by Team Chennai for $600,000) were bought for prices well above the base prices quoted for these players.

The base prices for Akhtar, Jayawardene and Murali were identically fixed at $250,000.

After the first two rounds of auction, the franchisees had paid $7.175 million while buying 10 players.