By IANS
Mumbai : Pakistan’s Twenty20 World Cup star Misbah Ul-Haq is the biggest catch for Bangalore’s Royal Challengers even as Indian Premier League (IPL) franchisees jostled to buy the India Under-19 World Cup winning members in the second round of auctions here Tuesday.
Misbah, who nearly snatched the Twenty20 World Cup single-handedly from India, was one of the top stars to go under the hammer and was bought for $125,000 by liquor baron Vijay Mallya-owned Royal Challengers.
Another prized catch was South Africa’s Ashwell Prince, who was picked up for $175,000 by Mumbai Indians.
The next big catch was England all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas, who was grabbed by Jaipur for $100,000. He became the first England player to be auctioned at the IPL.
Thus far English players had not figured in the auction as their county season overlaps with the IPL. It now transpires that Mascarenhas’ team Hampshire will issue him a no-objection certificate to play in the IPL.
Although there were 18 foreign players up for grabs, the focus was on the India Under-19 players whose fee was fixed at $30,000.
Bangalore got India Under-19 captain Virat Kohli and wicketkeeper Shreevats Goswami while Delhi snapped up local lad and left-arm seamer Pradeep Sangwan.
Taruwar Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja went to Jaipur, while Kolkata took Siddharth Kaul and Iqbal Abdulla. Mohali will have Tanmay Srivastava and Ajitesh Argal.
Mumbai Indians went for Saurabh Tiwary and Manish Pandey while Chennai Super Kings took Napoleon Einstein and Abhinav Mukund, the two Tamil Nadu players from the U-19 World Cup squad.
Among the foreign players coming under the hammer, Jaipur signed up South African fast bowler Morne Morkel ($60,000), Australian all-rounder Shane Watson ($125,000) and Pakistan left-arm fast bowler Sohail Tanvir ($100,000).
Kolkata bought Pakistan’s Salman Butt and Mohammad Hafeez for $100,000 each.
Mohali paid $300,000 for Australian James Hopes and $50,000 for his mate Luke Pomersbach as well as $150,000 for New Zealand bowler Kyle Mills.
Delhi Daredevlis went in for one foreign player – Brett Geeves, who represent Tasmania, Australia – for $50,000.
Bangalore also signed up Bangladesh left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak ($50,000) and New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor ($100,000).
Pakistan’s Mohammd Yousuf was the only player who was once again not picked by any of the teams as he is fighting a legal battle with rebel Indian Cricket League.