Team-wise best and worst buys of all-time in IPL auction history

3. Chennai Super Kings:

Best: MS Dhoni

This was not very tough to guess. During the first IPL auction, a lot of the Indian players who went under the hammer didn’t create as much hype as MS Dhoni did. He was India’s ODI and T20 captain, had a World Cup to his name, was one of the most destructive batters they had but wasn’t an icon for any IPL franchise.

Only Rajasthan and Chennai didn’t have any icon players at the time as no famous India player was there in their state. Chennai went to a bidding war with Royal Challengers Bangalore but eventually won after the price had gone to INR 6 crore.

Dhoni ended up being the highest bid in the auction that year. Since his entry to the CSK, he created a team and made them the best in this league and also one of the best T20 teams ever. Without a doubt, it was a historic snatch which CSK made that season. 

Worst: Andrew Flintoff

In the second season, English cricketers were going under the hammer for the first time. It was two players who had created the most amount of noise. Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. The two stars were picked by RCB and CSK respectively for INR 7.5 crore, which was the highest bid for any player at the time.

While KP was relatively successful, Flintoff didn’t have a great impact on CSK. He played just three matches before getting injured and was ruled out. He never came back to play for any franchise in the IPL.