19 December 2023 , 10:23
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Australia captain Pat Cummins landed a whopping £1.94million contract to break the IPL record at Tuesday's Indian Premier League auction - only to be usurped 90 minutes later!
Cummins sat out the 2023 tournament to focus on international cricket but became even hotter property after leading his side to the World Test Championship and last month’s 50-over World Cup on Indian soil.
And as four times vied for the fast bowler's signature, he made quite the splash, as Sunrisers Hyderabad ended up paying 20.5 crore rupees, eclipsing the previous high of 18.5 crore (£1.77m) Punjab Kings paid for English all-rounder Sam Curran last year.
That meant 30-year-old Cummins had seen his fee upped by a factor of 10 after entering the auction with a base price of just under £200k.
However, just an hour and a half later, Cummins' record had been smashed by Michell Stark.
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Stark went for £2.3million (24.75 crore) as the Kolkata Knight Riders came through to claim the fast bowler. Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians had both traded bids, before Gujarat Titans looked set to land him - only for KKR to make one last throw of the dice and get their man.
Meanwhile, England duo Harry Brook and Chris Woakes picking up deals worth just under £400,000.
Cummins' new side had plenty of budget to play with having released Brook after one season of a £1.3m deal, with the Yorkshireman picking up a healthy but much-reduced payday with the Capitals. He hit one superb century in his first IPL campaign but was otherwise badly short of runs with just 190 in 11 matches.
Woakes was later drafted for just under £400,000 by Punjab, joining his England team-mates Curran and Liam Livingstone.
Sunrisers also splurged on Cummins’ fellow Australian Travis Head, who capped a stellar year with a match-winning 137 in the World Cup final in Ahmedabad. He cost around £645,000 (6.8 crore) as he returned to the tournament for the first time since 2017.
West Indies T20 captain Rovman Powell was the first player to go under the hammer at the event in Dubai and fetched a surprisingly lavish £700,000 bid from Rajasthan Royals, while New Zealand all-rounder Daryl Mitchell scooped the biggest cheque of his career when he went to Chennai Super Kings for £1.3million.
CSK also signed Mitchell’s fellow Kiwi Rachin Ravindra, the breakout star of the World Cup, for a modest £170,000.