At the tap of a gavel, life-changing fortunes jingle in for Stokes and Mills

Alison Mitchell looks at the frenetic business of last week’s IPL auction which turned some fortunate players into instant millionaires.

- Alison Mitchell

I’ve never worked directly on the Indian Premier League so my interest in the auction has never needed to go much beyond a cursory look at the headlines to see if there were any record buys or surprising omissions. Usually Kevin Pietersen was the only England player likely to attract much in the way of a bidding war, and that’s where the fascination lies; to see who goes for the sort of money most of us will only ever dream of – and all for playing a string of three-hour long matches over the course of a seven-week period.

Ben Stokes was always expected to fetch a big sum, but even he was rubbing his eyes to think that he was bought for Rs 14.5 crore (£1.7 million) by Rising Pune Super giants – especially since he was up from 3 o’clock that morning following the auction on twitter before having to get up with his kids. The bidding that ensued made him the most expensive overseas player in the auction’s ten-year history.

Even more extraordinary, though, was the purchase of England and Sussex fast bowler Tymal Mills for Rs 12 crore (£1.4 million) by Bangalore Royal Challengers. The 24-year-old has only played four Twenty20 internationals, has a congenital back condition, yet became a millionaire with one stroke of the auctioneer’s gavel.

The speedster’s story is a poignant one, having thought at the age of 22 that his entire cricket career could be over when doctors scanned his spine for tumours, carried out lumbar punctures and tested him for multiple sclerosis. While there was no diagnosis of MS, it was eventually determined that his spinal cord and vertebrae are unusually close together. Bowling in excess of 90mph on a regular basis causes the spine to malfunction. Hence he no longer plays red ball cricket and had to abandon any dreams of becoming a Test cricketer, the form of the game that leads to a hefty central contract and a place in the heritage of the game.