Did IPL Franchises Overpay for Stars? Research
On the afternoon of 24 November 2024, in Jeddah, the auction room watched Shreyas Iyer go to Punjab Kings for 26.75 crore and break the all-time IPL record. Minutes later the record broke again. Lucknow Super Giants bought Rishabh Pant for 27 crore, and the room that had gasped at the first number barely had time to recover before the second one landed.
Prices in the IPL auction are quoted in crore. A crore is 100 lakh, or 10 million rupees, so 27 crore is roughly 270 million rupees for one player, for one season's contract. The question that hung over that evening, and over every auction since 2008, is the simplest one in sport: was he worth it?
This article takes the archive's auction lists for all 18 IPL auctions from 2008 to 2025 and asks that question properly. For each auction it finds the single most expensive buy and checks what that player actually produced the following season: matches, runs, strike rate, wickets, economy. Then it flips the lens and hunts for the opposite story: the cheapest buys who delivered real seasons. The auction is a market, and the market is wrong a lot. But the way it is wrong is interesting, and the limits of the test matter as much as the result.
The priciest buy, every auction: a scorecard
Here is the most expensive lot of each auction from 2008 to 2025, what it cost, what share of that season's purse it ate, and what the player, or players when the top bid was tied, did the following season. All figures come from the archive's auction lists.
| Auction | Player | Price | Share of purse | Following season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | MS Dhoni (CSK) | 6.00cr | 30.0% | 16 matches, 414 runs, SR 133.6 |
| 2009 | Andrew Flintoff (CSK) and Kevin Pietersen (RCB), tied | 7.44cr each | 28.6% | Flintoff: 3 matches, 62 runs, 2 wickets. Pietersen: 6 matches, 93 runs, SR 109.4, 4 wickets, econ 6.5. |
| 2010 | Kieron Pollard (MI) and Shane Bond (KKR), tied | 3.45cr each | 10.8% | Pollard: 14 matches, 273 runs SR 185.7, 15 wickets. Bond: 8 matches, 9 wickets, econ 7.2. |
| 2011 | Gautam Gambhir (KKR) | 10.80cr | 26.7% | 15 matches, 378 runs, SR 119.2 |
| 2012 | Ravindra Jadeja (CSK) | 10.00cr | 20.0% | 18 matches, 191 runs, 12 wickets |
| 2013 | Glenn Maxwell (MI) | 5.40cr | 8.0% | 3 matches, 36 runs |
| 2014 | Yuvraj Singh (RCB) | 14.00cr | 23.3% | 14 matches, 376 runs SR 135.2, 5 wickets |
| 2015 | Yuvraj Singh (DC) | 16.00cr | 25.4% | 14 matches, 248 runs, 1 wicket |
| 2016 | Shane Watson (RCB) | 9.50cr | 14.4% | 16 matches, 179 runs, 20 wickets |
| 2017 | Ben Stokes (RPS) | 14.50cr | 22.0% | 12 matches, 316 runs SR 143.0, 12 wickets |
| 2018 | Ben Stokes (RR) | 12.50cr | 15.6% | 13 matches, 196 runs, 8 wickets |
| 2019 | Jaydev Unadkat (RR) and Varun Chakravarthy (PBKS), tied | 8.40cr each | 10.2% | Unadkat: 11 matches, 10 wickets, econ 10.7. Chakravarthy: 1 match, 1 wicket, econ 11.7. |
| 2020 | Pat Cummins (KKR) | 15.50cr | 18.2% | 14 matches, 12 wickets, econ 7.9 |
| 2021 | Chris Morris (RR) | 16.25cr | 19.1% | 11 matches, 67 runs, 15 wickets, econ 9.2 |
| 2022 | Ishan Kishan (MI) | 15.25cr | 16.9% | 14 matches, 418 runs, SR 120.1 |
| 2023 | Sam Curran (PBKS) | 18.50cr | 19.5% | 14 matches, 276 runs, 10 wickets, econ 10.2 |
| 2024 | Mitchell Starc (KKR) | 24.75cr | 24.8% | 13 matches, 17 wickets, econ 10.6 |
| 2025 | Rishabh Pant (LSG) | 27.00cr | 22.5% | 14 matches, 269 runs, SR 133.2 |
Read it as a report card. Six of the eighteen delivered a season that clearly justified the fuss: Dhoni's 414 runs in 2008, Pollard's two-way 2010 (tied at the top with Shane Bond), Gambhir's 378 in 2011, Yuvraj's 376 in 2014, Stokes's 2017 double of 316 runs and 12 wickets, Kishan's 418 in 2022. Seven were outright flops: Flintoff, tied at the top with Kevin Pietersen, managed three matches in 2009, Maxwell three in 2013, Yuvraj's 16-crore season in 2015 produced 248 runs and a single wicket, Unadkat's 8.4-crore season, tied at the top with Varun Chakravarthy, leaked at 10.7 an over, Cummins took 12 wickets for 15.5 crore, Morris took 15 wickets at 9.2 for 16.25 crore, and Curran's record 18.5-crore season returned 276 runs and 10 expensive wickets. Five sit in between: Jadeja's honest 2012, Watson's 20-wicket 2016, Stokes's flat 2018, Starc's 17-wicket-but-pricey 2024, and Pant's 2025, too thin a return at 27 crore to call a hit and too early to call anything else.
The record bids tell their own story. Dhoni's 6 crore in 2008 stood until Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen's joint 7.44 crore in 2009. Gambhir reset it at 10.8 crore in 2011. Yuvraj carried it to 14 crore in 2014 and 16 crore in 2015, the first player to be the most expensive buy two years running. Then a six-year pause before Morris's 16.25 crore in 2021 edged past Yuvraj, and the dam broke: Curran's 18.5 crore in 2023, Cummins's 20.5 crore and then Starc's 24.75 crore in 2024, Pant's 27 crore in 2025. Each new record was confirmed against the season's published auction coverage, and the 2023 record is worth pausing on: Punjab paid 18.5 crore for Curran, a player of the tournament at the 2022 T20 World Cup two months earlier, explicitly surpassing Morris's 2021 mark. The market paid for the most recent thing it had seen.
Put a per-unit price on the latest two records and the numbers turn stark. Pant's 27 crore for 269 runs works out at just over 10 lakh a run. Starc's 24.75 crore for 17 wickets works out at about 1.46 crore a wicket. Nobody signs a player per run or per wicket, but those ratios are what "worth it" looks like when the season is over.
- Hammer price
Why the market keeps misfiring
The pattern in the flops is not bad luck. It is reputation bidding. Flintoff in 2009 was bought on the idea of Flintoff, then played three matches. Maxwell in 2013 was bought on T20 reputation and sat out most of the season. Starc in 2024 had not played the IPL for eight years; 24.75 crore bought the memory of the bowler, not the bowler's recent workload. Curran's 18.5 crore was the recency trade made flesh: a brilliant World Cup final two months before the auction, then a full season of 10 wickets at 10.2 an over. Yuvraj at 16 crore in 2015 was the purest case of all, a legend's price for a season that produced 248 runs.
There is a structural reason this keeps happening, and it is also the main defence of the franchises. The auction price is not a bet on one season. It is a bet on expected value across several seasons, plus the replacement logic of a capped squad: when your purse is 120 crore and only a handful of proven match-winners exist, the alternative to Pant at 27 crore is not a better player at 20 crore, it is nobody. Lucknow was also buying a captain and a rebuild's centrepiece, neither of which fits in the runs column. This article measures one season because one season is what the archive's output data covers, but no franchise's model is that narrow. Saying the market misfires is fair. Saying it is stupid is not.
The value XI: where the market looks away
Now the other end of the room. The cheapest buys who produced genuine seasons, eleven of them, none costing more than 75 lakh:
| Player | Auction | Price | Following season |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rahul Tripathi (RPS) | 2017 | 0.10cr | 14 matches, 391 runs, SR 146.4 |
| Venkatesh Iyer (KKR) | 2021 | 0.20cr | 10 matches, 370 runs, SR 128.5 |
| Shashank Singh (PBKS) | 2024 | 0.20cr | 14 matches, 354 runs, SR 164.7 |
| Shane Watson (RR) | 2008 | 0.50cr | 15 matches, 472 runs SR 151.8, 17 wickets |
| Ajinkya Rahane (CSK) | 2023 | 0.50cr | 14 matches, 326 runs, SR 172.5 |
| Tristan Stubbs (DC) | 2024 | 0.50cr | 14 matches, 378 runs, SR 190.9 |
| Mohit Sharma (GT) | 2023 | 0.50cr | 14 matches, 27 wickets, econ 8.2 |
| Piyush Chawla (MI) | 2023 | 0.50cr | 16 matches, 22 wickets, econ 8.1 |
| Jaydev Unadkat (RPS) | 2017 | 0.30cr | 12 matches, 24 wickets, econ 7.0 |
| Sohail Tanvir (RR) | 2008 | 0.40cr | 11 matches, 22 wickets, econ 6.4 |
| Axar Patel (PBKS) | 2014 | 0.75cr | 17 matches, 17 wickets, econ 6.1 |
The whole XI cost 4.45 crore, less than a sixth of Pant's single bid. Between them they produced 2,416 runs and 136 wickets the following season. Tripathi's 391 runs at a base price of 10 lakh works out at about 2,600 rupees a run, against Pant's 10 lakh. Pravin Tambe, who just misses the XI on the wicket cutoff shape, took 15 wickets for 10 lakh in 2014: about 0.7 lakh a wicket, against Starc's 146 lakh.
The Unadkat line deserves a second look. In 2017 he was the 30-lakh bargain on this list, 24 wickets at 7 an over. Two years later he was joint-headline of the 2019 auction at 8.4 crore, tied with Varun Chakravarthy, and delivered 10 wickets at 10.7. The market found him, priced him, and then some: the bargain became the overpay without the player changing much. That is the auction's information problem in one career. The best value lives where nobody is fighting: uncapped Indians, returning veterans like Rahane and Mohit, and overseas players in thin-demand seasons. Once the room notices, the discount disappears.
- Price
What a run costs, by era
Nominal prices cannot be compared across eighteen years without adjusting for the room they were bid in. The purse grew from 20 crore in 2008 to 120 crore in 2025, a sixfold rise, with 125 crore listed for the 2026 auction. A 2008 crore is simply not a 2025 crore. The honest cross-era comparison is price per unit of output, computed over every sold lot with a recorded following season, with a minimum of 300 runs or 15 wickets to keep part-timers out of the averages:
| Era | Median price per run (min 300 runs) | Median price per wicket (min 15 wkts) |
|---|---|---|
| 2008-2013 | 0.78 lakh (n=31) | 14.3 lakh (n=23) |
| 2014-2019 | 0.80 lakh (n=39) | 17.8 lakh (n=30) |
| 2020-2025 | 1.47 lakh (n=44) | 40.8 lakh (n=38) |
Two things stand out. First, the cost of output more than doubled in the latest era even in per-unit terms: runs cost about 1.5 lakh each in 2020-2025 against 0.8 lakh before, wickets about 41 lakh against 14-18 lakh. The purse grew, and the per-unit prices grew with it, which means the inflation is real and not just nominal. Second, wickets are far more expensive per unit than runs, which is just arithmetic: a 300-run season is ordinary for a batter and a 15-wicket season is ordinary for a bowler, so the per-wicket denominators are smaller.
Split by role rather than era, batters who cleared 300 runs cost a median of 0.92 lakh per run, wicket-keepers 1.25 lakh, and all-rounders 1.15 lakh. Bowlers who cleared 15 wickets cost 23.4 lakh per wicket; all-rounders 22.5 lakh. The all-rounder shows up in both columns, which flatters nobody: their output splits across runs and wickets, so a single-column metric always understates them. Watson's 2008 season, 472 runs plus 17 wickets for 50 lakh, is the value XI's best row precisely because he filled both columns at once.
A note the table cannot carry: do not confuse the purse with a salary cap or with actual spend. The purse is the auction budget. Retention deductions come out of it before the auction, and a winning bid is the season's salary. The purse arc is the size of the room, not the size of anyone's pay cheque.
- Per run
The metric's limits
One season of output is a noisy judge, and this article would be dishonest if it pretended otherwise. Four limits, stated plainly.
First, injuries and availability wreck any single-season reading. Flintoff's three matches in 2009 and Maxwell's three in 2013 are not evidence that the bids were misjudged so much as evidence that bodies broke. Price for durability is unobservable in one season's numbers.
Second, all-rounders are systematically underrated by both columns. Curran's 2023 looks bad as 276 runs and as 10 wickets; it was one player doing both jobs, and neither column alone captures that. Any per-unit comparison that ranks pure batters against all-rounders is comparing two different jobs.
Third, 27.1 percent of all sold lots from 2008 to 2025 have no recorded following-season output at all: 426 of 1,572 sold players never got on the park or never got recorded. The analysis only sees the players who played. Harry Brook, sold for 6.25 crore in 2025, has no following-season output in the archive. Survivorship is baked in.
Fourth, the famous steal stories do not show up in the following season. Hardik Pandya went for 10 lakh in 2015 and his next season was 9 matches, 112 runs and 1 wicket. Jasprit Bumrah went for 1.2 crore in 2014 and took 5 wickets in 11 matches the next season. The bargains were real, but their value arrived over several seasons, which is exactly the multi-season expectation the market was pricing. Judging a 10-lakh punt on one season misses the point of a 10-lakh punt.
So the careful conclusion is not a law. The auction overpays for reputation, chases recent form, and leaves the best value in the players nobody fought over. It does this about half the time on the biggest lots, which is often enough to be a real pattern and not often enough to be a rule. One season's numbers can show you where the market was wrong. They cannot tell you the market is foolish for trying.
Methodology
- Every price and output figure in this article is computed from the project's IPL auction archive, seasons 2008 to 2025, which records each sold lot's hammer price in lakh and that player's output in the following IPL season (matches, runs, strike rate, wickets, economy). A crore is 100 lakh.
- The 2026 auction is excluded from all price-versus-output analysis: only 42 of its 77 sold lots have a recorded following season, so the data is partial. Its purse and lot figures (125 crore, 359 lots) are reported as listed in the archive and should be treated as provisional.
- Unsold lots (recorded with no sold price) are excluded from every price calculation. Sold lots with no recorded following-season output are excluded from every output comparison; 426 of 1,572 sold lots from 2008 to 2025 fall in this group.
- Lot counts are the archive's auction lists as classified, not normalised to the IPL's longlist/shortlist distinction. Where published shortlists differ slightly (the archive counts 577 lots for the 2025 auction against the widely quoted shortlist of 574), the archive's list is what the figures use.
- The 2008 to 2013 auctions were conducted in US dollars; the rupee prices are the source's conversion. Known data corrections in the archive build, including the 2016 Paras Dogra price fix, are respected. The record-bid prices for Pant (27 crore), Starc (24.75 crore), Cummins (20.5 crore), Curran (18.5 crore) and Morris (16.25 crore) were cross-checked against the seasons' published auction coverage cited below.
Figures computed from CricArcade's match archive with our own analysis scripts. Checked against the scorecards and edited by Vishal Jaiswal. Found a number that looks wrong? Tell us and we will check it against the scorecard.
Sources
- List of 2025 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2024 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2023 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2021 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2022 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2018 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2015 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- List of 2014 Indian Premier League personnel changes (Wikipedia)
- TATA IPL 2025 auction list with RTM (BCCI/IPL official document)
- IPL 2024 auction list (BCCI/IPL official document)
- TATA IPL 2023 player auction list (BCCI official document)
More research:
- Does Winning the Toss Win Tests?
- Batting First or Second?
- How Strong Is Home Advantage?
- How Often Is 300 Chased Down?
- The Anatomy of a Collapse
- Where the IPL's Money Went
- Which Partnerships Decide Matches?
- The 10 Greatest Test Partnerships, Ranked
- The 10 Greatest ODI Partnerships, Ranked
- The Highest- and Lowest-Scoring Grounds in Cricket
- The Disappearing Draw