Vin­ode Mam­chan

Kieron Pol­lard and Shane Bond were the biggest buys at the third IPL auc­tion in Mum­bai, each fetch­ing the max­i­mum pos­si­ble bid of $750,000 but the biggest sur­prise was the fact that not a sin­gle Pak­istan play­er was signed up by any of the fran­chis­es. Yes­ter­day's auc­tion was low-key com­pared to the pre­vi­ous two, the fran­chis­es guid­ed more by play­er avail­abil­i­ty than star pow­er (the first year's trend) or pure Twen­ty20 skills, as in 2009. Ten over­seas slots were filled, and Mo­hammed Kaif be­came the eleventh se­nior play­er signed up on the day.

How­ev­er, there was not a sin­gle bid for any Pak­istani play­er, though most of the World Twen­ty20-win­ning team was up for auc­tion–in­clud­ing Shahid Afri­di, the cap­tain, Mo­ham­mad Aamer, Umar Gul and Umar Ak­mal. What made the black­out stranger was that the names had been placed on the auc­tion list by the fran­chis­es ex­press­ing an in­ter­est in the play­ers. The of­fi­cial ex­pla­na­tion was that the play­ers were over­looked for rea­sons of avail­abil­i­ty and crick­et strat­e­gy. "The fran­chis­es had the op­tion to pick any play­er. If you look, they [Pak­istan play­ers] were not the on­ly ones not picked," Lalit Mo­di, the IPL com­mis­sion­er, said.

"There were oth­er play­ers, too, who were not picked in the auc­tion." Their loss was oth­ers' gain, most no­tably Bond. The New Zealand fast bowler, who re­cent­ly quit Test crick­et to fo­cus on the short­er forms of the game, saw his val­ue rise the most, from a base price of $100,000 to the cap of $750,000 be­fore Kolkata Knight Rid­ers–who en­tered the bid­ding at $640,000–and Dec­can Charg­ers sub­mit­ted their se­cret bids. Kolkata won, bid­ding an undis­closed amount. Bond's sale was the auc­tion's sec­ond tie-break­er; the first was among four fran­chis­es for Pol­lard, the ex­plo­sive West In­dies all­rounder with a base price of $200,000.

He was even­tu­al­ly signed up by Mum­bai In­di­ans, who beat off Chen­nai Su­per Kings, Roy­al Chal­lengers Ban­ga­lore and Kolkata. "The team strat­e­gy, dis­cussed be­tween Sachin Ten­dulkar, TA Sekar and Robin Singh was that we want­ed a bat­ting all­rounder and we are hap­py to have him," Ni­ta Am­bani, who rep­re­sent­ed Mum­bai at the auc­tion, said. Pol­lard and Bond's fi­nal price was not dis­closed and Mo­di said on­ly he and the suc­cess­ful bid­ders would be privy to that in­for­ma­tion. The two oth­er no­table sign­ings were Ke­mar Roach, the West In­dies fast bowler, who was bought by Dec­can for $720,000, and South Africa's Wayne Par­nell, bought by Del­hi Dare­dev­ils for $610,000.

"It is great for the play­er and he has a big fu­ture ahead of him," Mo­di said of Roach's price. "He is 100 per cent avail­able and that could have been a big fac­tor [in his sale]. They [Dec­can] need­ed a fast bowler and he met their re­quire­ment." Mo­ham­mad Kaif, the on­ly In­di­an up for auc­tion, went un­sold in the first round of bid­ding but was lat­er signed up by Pun­jab for $250,000. (AP)

Play­ers sold

Kieron Pol­lard (Mum­bai, USD750,000+)

Shane Bond (Kolkata, 750,000+)

Ke­mar Roach (Dec­can, 720,000)

Wayne Par­nell (Del­hi, 610,000)

Mo­ham­mad Kaif (Pun­jab, 250,000)

Eoin Mor­gan (Ban­ga­lore, 220,000)

Damien Mar­tyn (Ra­jasthan, 100,000)

Justin Kemp (Chen­nai, 100,000)

Thissara Per­era (Chen­nai, 50,000)

Adam Vo­ges (Ra­jasthan, 50,000)

Yusuf Ab­dul­la (Pun­jab, 50,000)