Jaipur team Rajasthan Royals, owned by a consortium by Emerging Media and other investors, will walk into the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) second-round of player-auction with the fattest wallet.

Team Jaipur can afford to spend up to $ 1.7m on buying players this time around, compared to Mumbai Indians’ purse of $ 53,750 and Chennai Super Kings’ $ 71,250.

The next best in spending power will be Bangalore’s Royal Challengers, who have $ 374,000 left in their account.

Therefore, for those who believe that the first round of player auction was a blatant display of tycoons and superstars going on a spending spree, the second round, scheduled to be held on March 11, can expect these buyers to put mind over money.

Jaipur apart, the other seven will walk into the auction room with a collective purse of a mere $1.119m. That is less than what Chennai had spent on buying Mahendra Singh Dhoni or what Hyderabad ended up paying for Andrew Symonds.

The auction begins — without the renowned auctioneer Richard Madley this time — at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) office in Mumbai from 1 pm. It will be an internal bidding followed by the draft system adopted for these teams to induct players from the Under-19 world champions team.

The majority of cricketers on sale in the auction are from Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia with star performers of the Twenty20 World Cup Misbah-ul Haq and Mohammad Hafeez, 26-year-old all-rounder Shane Watson, recent one-day star James Hopes and Western Australia’s Luke Pomersbach in fray.

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