Auction Madness

Going into the players auctions of the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League, people expected the T20 league to finally succumb to the economic pressures of the ongoing recession. This wasn't the case. In fact, if an outsider were to gauge the health of the Indian economy simply by looking at the auction proceedings on Sunday, she would come away thinking India was just hitting an economic purple patch. Overall, the nine teams spent a total of $11.89 million (around R63 crore) on 37 players. By the IPL's lavish standards, this may not seem all that extravagant, but keep in mind that this round of auctions only applies to this year. Player auctions are carried out in three-year cycles, with this being the last of the current cycle—next year, all the players, except the limited number franchises choose to retain, will again return to the auction pool, and the teams will be built from scratch. To further put things in context, the Mumbai Indians saw fit to spend $1 million on Australian all-rounder Glen Maxwell for just one year. And the kicker is that his payment is not even incumbent on his performance!

So yes, the IPL is cash-rich, but all that wanton extravagance—Vijay Mallya's Royal Challengers Bangalore, for example, spent $1,715,000 (Kingfisher Airlines employees, are you listening?)—surely comes in handy by providing young, budding players the valuable experience of playing alongside and against international stalwarts? Apparently not. These five years of IPLs have done little to shore up the Indian cricket team's bench strength, with many players earning enough to just concentrate on the IPL. And, worse, the IPL has acclimatised international players to Indian conditions so that they can come drub us at home.

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