The auction ahead of IPL 2024 took place on Tuesday with all 10 franchises looking to make the necessary additions to their squads that will take them to the playoffs and potentially beyond.

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One of the great things about the IPL is that the 10 teams are so closely matched and so a piece of good business at the auction can really help to swing the advantage, even for sides who have struggled in the recent past.

The Players

Big earning Aussies

With a number of Australia's big name stars opting to sit out the 2023 version of the IPL, it was no great surprise to see them coming back into the competition for hefty sums of money particularly off the back of their recent World Cup victory in India.

Pat Cummins broke the record for the most expensive player in IPL history when he was signed by SRH earlier in the auction (approx $2.5 million) only for fellow fast bowler Mitch Starc to then go for even more when he joined KKR (approx $3 million).

Travis Head, hero of the World Cup final last month, will join Cummins at SRH (approx $800k) and the pair will be key to the Sunrisers avoiding another wooden spoon.

While it was expected that Cummins and Starc would comfortably breach the million USD mark, the somewhat surprise package was young Spencer Johnson who attracted a lot of attention during the accelerated auction including from the likes of DC and Gujarat Titans who had both missed out on Starc earlier on but were happy to settle for an equally quick if not lesser known Aussie left-armer.

Other overseas millionaires

Darryl Mitchell went to CSK for just shy of $1.7 million while Alzarri Joseph joined RCB for 1.4million.

As noted in my previous blog on players to watch at this year's auction, Mitchell is one of the most improved cricketers in the world game over the last couple of years and while not perhaps being the glamour signing that you might get from other names, he is certainly going to add even further depth to an already impressive Chennai squad.

Meanwhile Joseph was somewhat unlucky not to feature as heavily for the Titans last season having been a key bowler for them in their championship side of 2022. RCB will be looking to him to lead their attack in the 2024 season.

Salt left salty

Of all the big names that were sold at auction, there were of course plenty who didn't find a home. While the likes of Cummins, Starc and Head can celebrate massive increases in their respectively bank balances, the same can't be said for Aussie teammates Steve Smith and Josh Hazlewood who failed to attract any bids despite having ample IPL experience.

Phil Salt can also count himself unlucky given that he performed reasonably in a poor DC side last year and had scored a T20i hundred a couple of days prior to the auction. He followed that up with a stunning 119 just hours after the bidding had concluded and perhaps a few franchises will be left wondering what might have been ...

Life changing sums for the local talent

Lots of young Indian players were also hoping to attract bids from the 10 franchises whether for just a few thousand dollars or as in the case of a lucky few for truly life changing sums of money.

Shubham Dubey, Sameer Rizvi, Kumar Kushagra all atrracted bids of $700k and upwards to join the IPL for the first time. While the likes of Harshal Patel, Shahrukh Kahn, Shardul Thakur and Yash Dayal also benefited from generous bids having been released in the off-season.

The Franchises

A full analysis of each squad will follow in the new year but for now this is how the franchises performed at the auction, where they managed to get their business done and where they've left themselves short.

CSK

Funds available: 31.4 Crore
Notable signings: Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Sameer Rizvi, Daryl Mitchell
Missed out on: Head, Cummins, Coetzee, Joseph and Robin Minz

CSK do love an all-rounder! Most of their fairly substantial pursue went on signing them and middle order batsmen with the intent of replacing Ben Stokes and Ambati Rayudu from last year's championship winning side.

No doubt Stephen Flemming knows his fellow Kiwis Ravindra and Mitchell very well and despite the high price tags, both will be able to slot into a squad in which every player knows their role and more often than not executes it to perfection.

Similarly Shardul Thakur is returning to a franchise and environment that he knows well and indeed thrived in. Meanwhile Samir Rizvi is a young cricketer of tremendous promise and certainly a long term replacement for the recently retired Rayudu.

CSK did miss out on a few big names but you do wonder how serious their bidding was for the likes of Cummins, Coetzee and Joseph and whether instead they were just looking to push the price up to hurt the squad building of their rivals.

DC

Funds available: 28.95 Crore
Notable signings: Harry Brook, Tristan Stubbs, Jhye Richardson, Kumar Kushagra
Missed out on: Pretty much everyone else!

Not a great auction for DC. There weren't many areas of the team that didn't need strengthening for the Capitals and that was evident from their scattergun approach.

I was keeping a tally of which team was bidding for which players and I ran out of room in the column marked 'DC'. By my calculations, they bid on 19 players and ended signing just 9 of them including several young squad players.

They did manage to get Harry Brook in early and that does help fill one of the batting spots that needed cover but they also missed out on the likes of overseas stars Ravindra and Mitchell as well as young Indian talent in Shubman Dubey and Sameer Rizvi. Similarly they went in for quick bowlers including Starc, Joseph and Johnson but ultimately ended up signing Jhye Richardson.

All in all, it feels like a group of players with little to no experience or indeed prior success in Indian conditions and that plus the fact that they left over 9 crore unspent could well come back to bite them come game time.

GT

Funds available: 38.15 Crore
Notable signings: Shahrukh Khan, Spencer Johnson, Robin Minz
Missed out on: Starc, Harshal Patel, Sameer Rizvi, Kumar Kushagra

Coming into the auction with the largest pursue of the 10 franchises, you would perhaps have expected GT to make a bit more noise but instead they played it fairly cool and given the success they've achieved in such a short period of time, why wouldn't they.

It was clear that GT had a very definite plan of the type of players they wanted to bring in and although they missed out on the likes of Starc they do appear to have gotten the next best thing in young Spencer Johnson who if he can stay fit might just be a superstar in the making.

Shahrukh Khan joins a squad who already seem to have an abundance of finishers, 1 or 2 of whom always seem to come off for the Titans. Meanwhile Robin Minz comes in to offer a left-handed option and competition to Saha for the keeper role, something that GT desperately needed to get from this auction.

KKR

Funds available: 32.7 Crore
Notable signings: Mitchell Starc, Gus Atkinson, Sherfane Rutherford, Mujeed Rahman
Missed out on: Powell, Woakes, Johnson

KKR splurged big on Mitch Starc to help cover their lack of fast bowlers while also bringing in Gus Atkinson late on although how he'll fit into the XI remains to be seen.

The fact that they weren't really able to bring in experienced Indian seam bowlers to back up Starc and the plethora of spin options they have is a cause for concern. In fact, the only Indian seamer they really went after (and failed to get) was Kartik Tyagi so perhaps they know something about the youngsters they have in their squad that we don't?

With the return to fitness of Shreyas Iyer, their batting looks stronger and the addition of KS Bharat as a back-up keeper does mean they could potentially shuffle the line-up if Gurbaz doesn't come off.

LSG

Funds available: 13.15 Crore
Notable signings: Shivam Mavi, David Willey, Ashton Turner
Missed out on: Coetzee

With the smallest pursue coming into the auction LSG were really there as spectators as much as anything. They did bid for a couple of big names including Harshal Patel and Alzarri Joseph but once the sums for those 2 got beyond 10 Crore it essentially ruled out Lucknow as a destination.

Shivam Mavi offers depth to the Indian bowling options while David Willey and Ashton Turner are likely to be back up for the overseas stars that LSG retained.

MI

Funds available: 17.75 Crore
Notable signings: Gerald Coetzee, Nuwan Thushara, Dilshan Madushanka
Missed out on: Starc

Having done their main piece of business pre-auction with the return of Hardik Pandya, MI were left looking to strengthen their fast bowling options and in doing so have acquired 3 decent young bowlers to compliment the likes of Bumrah and Behrendorff.

Coetzee can certainly bowl through the middle to late portion of the innings while it's no great surprise to see MI recruit from Sri Lanka when considering that they have Lasith Malinga as part of the coaching set-up. Nuwan Thushara is a Malinga clone in his action can he deliver MI the same kind of success in the IPL?

PBKS

Funds available: 29.1 Crore
Notable signings: Harshal Patel, Rilee Rossouw, Chris Woakes
Missed out on: Ravindra, Joseph, Shahrukh Khan, Mitchell

Harshal Patel certainly adds depth to their fast bowling but otherwise Woakes and Rossouw will be in direct competition with the high value overseas players they've already retained.

They tried to get Shahrukh Khan back in, presumably at a lower price than they'd released him for, but ultimately lost out to GT. That could hurt them if they persist with playing Livingstone in the top 4 and/or continue with their gung ho approach to batting - you really need greater depth than PBKS look likely to have to pull that off!

The Kings also managed to provide the comic relief to proceedings by buying a youngster called 'Singh' only to attempt to change their mind after the hammer came down. To be fair, with the number of 'Singhs' on their books, it probably does get a little confusing as to which ones you want and which you don't. Still, it's going to be an awkward first net for the unfortunate young man in question.

RR

Funds available: 14.5 Crore
Notable signings: Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey
Missed out on: Brook

Rajasthan came straight out of the traps and secured Rovman Powell as the first signing of the auction and then went in hard for Harry Brook who was ultimately the only player out of the 6 that they bid on that they didn't get over the line.

Shubham Dubey was their other big signing. Rajasthan certainly needed a left hander to replace Paddikal but Dubey generally bats down the order on the domestic circuit which does raise questions as to who will come in at 4?

Rajasthan also failed to buy an all-rounder who might have given their XI more balance. Much then will depend on the top order to put up big runs once again!

RCB

Funds available: 23.25 Crore
Notable signings: Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Lockie Ferguson
Missed out on: Cummins, Nuwan Thushana

Went in big for Cummins but were ultimately gazumped by an SRH side with deeper pockets. Still, the signing of Joseph might prove to be better after all based on recent showings in the competition.

However, RCB lack a really high quality spinner and there are question marks over who will bowl the death overs. Joseph and Ferguson who was brought in late on are both very aggressive, wicket taking bowlers but they might go for a few runs particularly in high scoring home matches. Do RCB have the batting firepower to offset that?

SRH

Funds available: 34.0 Crore
Notable signings: Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Pat Cummins
Missed out on: Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav

The revolving door in Hyderabad always means they are worth a watch at any auction and they didn't disappoint by going in big for both Travis Head and Pat Cummins.

Head adds a much needed left-hand option to the batting while SRH will hope that Pat Cummins can offer more control than they've managed to exert in the middle overs in recent seasons.

Cummins may also prove a useful signing in as far as leadership is concerned with Aiden Markram looking a little lost at times in charge of a sinking ship.

You could see from the reaction of the SRH contingent that they were delighted to get Hasaranga at his base price. A high quality wrist spinner was a must buy for the Sunrisers and a few other franchises might be ruing the fact that they didn't go in for one of the bargains of the auction. How exactly SRH get him into the XI with Markram, Cummins, Head and Klassen in their ranks remains to be seen.

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All stats used in this blog are from my own database which is freely accessible at T20 head to head. Images are my own with the exception of player profiles and background images which are used under a creative commons license or otherwise royalty free