Aussies Rule As Cummins, Starc Breach ₹20cr Mark

The record for the most expensive signing in Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions fell twice in quick succession on Tuesday as the ₹20 crore mark was breached for the first time in the cash-rich T20 league’s 15-year history. Australian pacers Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins were responsible for the record-breaking numbers in Dubai, securing unprecedented bids of ₹24.75 crore and ₹20.5 crore from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) respectively.

- Vivek Krishnan

The highest bid before Tuesday was ₹18.5 crore for England’s Sam Curran by Punjab Kings at the auction for IPL 2023.

With recency bias tending to influence decision-making at IPL auctions, it isn’t surprising that Starc and Cummins have become the most expensive acquisitions ever.

Both were part of Australia’s ODI World Cup-winning campaign in India last month, and their availability for this mini-auction implied that teams in need of a marquee pacer were going to go all out. Cummins didn’t take part in this year’s IPL citing his commitments with the Australian team, while Starc hasn’t played in the tournament since 2015 with his focus on managing his workload. He was signed by KKR for ₹9.4 crore at the IPL auction in 2018, but he couldn’t play due to injury.

Neither has managed to have a major impact in the shortest format so far, but the money splurged at these auctions can often go against cold cricketing logic. This is illustrated perhaps most aptly by West Indian pacer Alzarri Joseph, who has 20 wickets in 19 IPL matches at an economy of 9.19, going to Royal Challengers Bangalore for ₹11.5 crore — the fourth most expensive buy on Tuesday. With Gujarat Titans having the largest purse left ( ₹38.15 crore) and Lucknow Super Giants the smallest ( ₹13.15 crore) heading into the auction — all teams are allocated a budget of ₹100 crore each — these bids are dictated by the requirements and resources of different franchises.