IPL 2018 Auction: List of Batsmen sold - Set 1

The shortest format of the game is ruled by the batsmen more often than not as they pummel the bowlers from the word go. Naturally, they attracted a lot of bids in the ongoing IPL auction in Bengaluru when the first set of batsmen went under the hammer. As it turned out all the franchises came alive to snap up their favourite players who have set the stage ablaze in the last year or so. However, KL Rahul went for the sensational amount of Rs. 11 Crore and was bagged by Kings XI Punjab.

Royal Challengers Bangalore denied using Right to Match (RTM) card mostly for the stakes went high for the Indian opener. Karun Nair’s excellent Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy worked wonders for him as the franchises were involved in the intense bidding war. His base price was a mere Rs. 50 Lakhs and finally was picked by the busiest franchise of the day KXIP for a whopping amount of Rs. 5.6 Crore.

Murali Vijay, currently involved in the third and final Test of the ongoing series in South Africa, went unsold which was in a way surprising and might come back into the auction on Sunday.

RCB buy their first player

Royal Challengers Bangalore bagged the former New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum for Rs. 3.6 Crore who was also their first pick of the day. However, much like KL Rahul, Chris Lynn garnered a lot of attention and his stakes went sky high from Rs. 2 Crore to a huge amount of Rs. 9.6 Crore and his previous franchise Kolkata Knight Riders only went for him and won the war in the end.

While the likes of Jason Roy could receive only a solitary bid from DD on his base price, the stylish Hashim Amla went unsold much to the surprise of everyone. However, it was Manish Pandey behind whom the teams bid like anything. He matched Rahul neck and neck and earned Rs. 11 Crore with KKR not using RTM card for him. In the end, Sunrisers managed to bag him and were excited a lot after that.

List of batsmen sold in the first set:

Karun Nair: KXIP 5.6 Crore

KL Rahul: KXIP: 11 Crore

David Miller: KXIP 3 Crore (RTM)

Aaron Finch: KXIP: 6.2 Crore

Brendon McCullum: RCB 3.6 crore

Jason Roy: DD 1.5 crore

Chris Lynn: KKR 9.6 Crore

Manish Pandey: SRH 11 Crore

List of batsmen who went unsold:

Murali Vijay

Hashim Amla

Martin Guptill

Follow live feeds of the IPL auction here