IPL 2017 Mini Auction

Stokes earns it

Rising Pune Supergiant, in their second and last season, paid ₹14.5 crore for Ben Stokes, the most any franchise had spent on an overseas player. It is one of the few record prices in this archive that the season repaid in full: Stokes scored 316 runs, took 12 wickets, made a hundred and was named player of the tournament as Pune reached the final.

The specialist premium

Royal Challengers Bangalore paid ₹12 crore for Tymal Mills, an England left-arm quick who bowled only short spells because of a back condition and was valued for his variations at the death. He played five matches, and Bangalore finished last. The pattern of franchises paying heavily for a single specialist skill, especially death bowling, runs through every later auction.

Firsts and a one-run final

Sunrisers Hyderabad bought Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi, the first Afghanistan players in the league. Rashid became one of its most successful overseas bowlers. Mumbai Indians, who spent little here, beat Pune by one run in the final for their third title. The Rising Pune Supergiantpage covers the franchise's two seasons.

Reading the numbers

Overseas players took nearly three quarters of the money in 2017. Pune and Bangalore spent the most, largely on Stokes and Mills; Gujarat spent the least, in what turned out to be their final season.

Mumbai, seventh of eight on spend, won the title, and the most expensive buy reached the final. Bangalore, second on spend, finished last, which makes 2017 one of the clearest cases in the archive of auction money and results pointing in opposite directions. Ishant Sharma, Jason Holder, Jonny Bairstow and Nathan Lyon were among the capped players nobody bought, a list that shows how much the auction then still valued T20 specialists over established international players.