IPL 2020 Auction: Round 1 - Sold and Unsold players

The Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the 2020 edition is taking place in Kolkata. And the franchises have already made their intentions clear splurging a lot of money on the overseas players. Pat Cummins and Glenn Maxwell were in demand in the first round during which the capped batsmen and all-rounders went under the hammer.

Chris Lynn was the first player to be announced on the day and to everyone’s surprise, only Mumbai Indians (MI) bid for him. The Australian was a bargain buy for the four-time champions as they secured his services for his base price of Rs 2 crore. Eoin Morgan, England’s T20I and ODI captain, was the next one and there was no doubt that he was going to go for a decent amount after winning the World Cup for his country earlier this year.

He was snapped up by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for Rs 5.25 crore. However, KKR’s next move seemed to be the decisive one as they bid extremely late for Cummins. From the outset, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) seemed to be securing the Aussie pacer even as the Delhi Capitals were also behind him.

However, the KKR entered the bidding process after the bid went beyond Rs 14 crore and eventually got him for a whopping 15.5 crore and is likely to become the most expensive buy of the day. Glenn Maxwell also sparked a bidding war and will now eventually play for the KXIP after the franchise spent Rs 10.75 crore for him.

Chris Morris get a huge amount of Rs 10 crore

Meanwhile, Australia’s T20I skipper Aaron Finch was bagged by the RCB for Rs 4.4 crore while Chris Morris was the biggest surprise probably of the IPL 2020 auction. There was intense bidding war between the Rajasthan Royals (RR), KXIP and RCB and it literally went out of the hands at one stage. Morris endured an exceptional MSL season recently while playing for the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants and it worked wonders for him.

The all-rounder had picked 10 wickets in 11 innings and scored 122 runs at a strike-rate of close to 180 which led to him going for Rs 10 crore to the RCB. The unsold players in the first round were Cheteshwar Pujara, Yusuf Pathan, Hanuma Vihari, Colin de Grandhomme and Stuart Binny. Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) first buy of the day was Sam Curran who played for Kings XI last season.

Here is the list of sold and unsold players in the first round: