Trouble brewing in Australia?

The IPL auction has left Cricket Australia in a spot of bother. The huge differences in IPL player bids is creating some tension in the Australian dressing room.

Andrew Symonds is set to earn $1.47 million for playing 14 IPL matches, that's $600 a minute. Meanwhile, Rick Ponting, the highest paid Australian contracted player will be collecting a meager $436,000.

I thought I might have been able to attract a little bit more than that," he said.

"I have had my fair share of endorsements over the years and always felt the Indian people have warmed to me quite often when I have been there.

"Lots of things have gone through my mind in the last couple of days.

"Even my involvement in the Harbhajan (Singh) thing, but I thought hang on, Symo (Symonds) was involved in it as well."

Brett Lee has gone for an impressive $981,000. Non-ODI regulars Cameron White and David Hussey collected $500,000 and $625,000 respectively. But batting stalwarts Mike Hussey($380,000) and Mathew Hayden($375,000) have every reason to feel disappointed.

And then there are Michael Clarke, Mitchell Johnson and Brad Haddin who refused to join IPL. But they are no real heroes. Clarke is the captain-in-waiting, Johnson would be looking to succeed Brett Lee as Australia Premiere fast bowler and Haddin would want to cement his place a Gilly's successor. They all know their chance would come.

Ponting believes IPL cash would not cause any friction in the team.

"It's probably only me and Matty (Hayden) that will have any reason to be jealous of anybody else," he said. "Matty and I aren't that sort of people."

But their poor batting in the past few weeks clearly indicates that IPL is weighing heavily on their minds.

David vs. Goliath

The signs are ominous for Essel Group’s Indian Cricket League. As they gear up to kick off their second tournament in March 08 the IPL juggernaut is threatening push them into oblivion. IPL is already proving to be a cash cow. It has attracted millions of dollars in sponsorship and TV rights. ICL on the other hand doesn't have sponsors, all they have is partners.

IPL has the endorsement of ICC and the cricket boards for all nations have warned their players against joining ICL. Any player who joins ICL will have their international careers terminated. This has clearly worked in IPL's favor, as many as eighty international players have joined IPL and all of them were up for grabs at IPL's big ticket auction held in Mumbai.

ICL also has some big names like Brian Lara, Chris Cairns, Marvan Atapattu and Inzamam-ul-Haq. Very recently they snapped up eight Pakistani players including Mohammad Sami and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. But Lara's delayed arrival for next months tournament has raised speculation that IPL is trying to poach him.

As the battle heats up ICL's greatest challenge will be to attract advertisements.

IPL Bidding Frenzy!!

World Crickets star-studded names were up for grabs at the IPL auction held in Mumbai. India one day skipper M S Dhoni attracted the highest bid and quite surprisingly Andrew Symonds fetched a whopping 1.47 million dollars.

The five Indian Icon players, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag, were not auctioned. They will get 15 per cent more than the highest bid player of their respective teams. Sachin Tendulkar whose Mumbai team bought Sanath Jayasuriya for USD 975,000 will get USD 1.12 million. On the other hand Sehwag's Delhi teams highest bid was USD 650,000 for Pakistani bowler Mohammad Asif. So Sehwag would get only USD 747500 he would most certainly have got more if he was auctioned.

Looking at the current team standings Hyderabad seems to have the best batting line up but they are quite weak in the bowling department. Kolkata has a strong all round team. Mohali and Chennai have also got impressive line ups but Jaipur looks pathetic. Here is the complete who got who list


BANGALORE
Rahul Dravid (Captain)
Anil Kumble (India) USD 526,000
Jacques Kallis (South Aftrica) USD 981,000
Zaheer Khan (India) USD 491,000
Mark Boucher (South Africa) USD 491,000
Cameron White (Australia) USD 546,000
Wasim Jaffer (India) USD 164,000
Nathan Bracken (Australia) USD 354,000
Dale Steyn (South Africa) USD 354,000
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies) USD 218,000

CHENNAI SUPERKINGS
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India) USD 1.65 million
Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) USD 656,000
Matthew Hayden (Australia) USD 409,000
Jacob Oram (New Zealand) USD 736,000
Parthiv Patel (India) USD 355,000
Albie Morkel (South Africa) USD 737,000
Joginder Sharma (India) USD 246,000
Suresh Raina (India) USD 711,000
Makhaya Ntini (South Africa) USD 215,000
Michael Hussey (Australia) USD 381,000
Stephen Fleming (New Zealand) USD 381,000

DELHI DAREDEVILS
Virender Sehwag (Captain)
Daniel Vettori (New Zealand) USD 681,000
Shoaib Malik (Pakistan) USD 545,000
Mohammad Asif (Pakistan) USD 709,000
Dinesh Karthik (India) USD 573,000
AB de Villiers (South Africa) USD 328,000
Farveez Maharoof (Sri Lanka) USD 246,000
Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka) USD 273,000
Manoj Tiwary (India) USD 740,000
Gautam Gambhir (India) USD 793,000
Glenn McGrath (Australia) USD 381,000

HYDERABAD
Adam Gilchrist (Australia) USD 765,000
Andrew Symonds (Australia) USD 1.47 million
Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa) USD 627,000
Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) USD 736,000
Chamara Silva (Sri Lanka) USD 109,000
VVS Laxman (India) USD 410,000
Rohit Sharma (India) USD 821,000
RP Singh (India) USD 950,000
Chaminda Vaas (Sri Lanka) USD 217,000
Nuwan Zoysa (Sri Lanka) USD 120,000
Scott Styris (New Zealand) USD 190,000

JAIPUR
Shane Warne (Aus) USD 492,000
Graeme Smith (South Africa) USD 518,000
Younis Khan (Pakistan) USD 245,000
Kamran Akmal (Pakistan) USD 164,000
Yusuf Pathan (India) USD 519,000
Mohammad Kaif (India) USD 738,000
Munaf Patel (India) USD 300,000
Justin Langer (Australia) USD 218,000

KOLKATA
Sourav Ganguly (Captain)
Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan) USD 464,000
Ricky Ponting (Australia) USD 436,000
Brendon McCullum (New Zealand) USD 763,000
Chris Gayle (West Indies) USD 872,000
Ajit Agarkar (India) USD 382,000
David Hussey (Aus) USD 740,000
Murali Kartik (India) USD 460,000
Umar Gul (Pak) USD 163,000
Ishant Sharma (India) USD 1.03 million
Tatenda Taibu (Zimbabwe) USD 136,000

MOHALI
Yuvraj Singh (Captain)
Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka) USD 519,000
Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) USD 764,000
Brett Lee (Aus) USD 982,000
Shantha Sreesanth (India) USD 681,000
Irfan Pathan (India) USD 1.01 million
Ramesh Powar (India) USD 185,000
Piyush Chawla (India) USD 435,000
Simon Katich (Australia) USD 218,000
Ramnaresh Sarwan (West Indies) USD 245,000

MUMBAI
Sachin Tendulkar (Captain) USD 1.12 million
Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka) USD 1.064 million
Harbhajan Singh (India) USD 927,000
Shaun Pollock (South Africa) USD 601,000
Robin Uthappa (India) USD 875,000
Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka) USD 380,000
Dilhara Fernando (Sri Lanka) USD 163,000
Loots Bosman (South Africa) $190,000