IPL 2012 Mini Auction

One player, one purse

Chennai Super Kings bought exactly one player in 2012, and paid US$2 million for him. Ravindra Jadeja, then 23, had missed the 2010 season over a contract dispute and was far from an established India player. Chennai won him on a tie-break and built around him for more than a decade; the price that looked extravagant for a bits-and-pieces all-rounder turned out to be one of the steadiest investments in the league.

The Narine signing

Kolkata Knight Riders paid US$700,000 for Sunil Narine, a spinner with almost no international experience and an action batters could not read. He took 24 wickets in his first season, more than any of the ten most expensive buys, and Kolkata won their first title. Mahela Jayawardene at Delhi and Brendon McCullum at Kolkata were the other notable signings; Vinay Kumar returned 19 wickets for Bangalore.

A small auction that mattered

Only 25 players were sold, and several well-known names, among them Graeme Swann, James Anderson and VVS Laxman, drew no bid. Yet Jadeja and Narine each went on to play more than ten seasons for the franchise that bought them. The Chennai and Kolkata pages show how both were kept through the mega auctions that followed.

Reading the numbers

Chennai spent their entire outlay on one player, and the other franchises spread less than ₹50 crore between them. Overseas players took a little over half the money, a lower share than in most mini auctions, because Jadeja alone accounted for nearly a fifth of the day's spending.

Kolkata, fourth among the eight on spend, won the title, with Narine the season's outstanding bowler. The unsold list included several England Test players, Graeme Swann and James Anderson among them, and Mark Boucher, a reminder that the IPL of this period valued availability for the whole season as much as quality.