At this weekend’s 2018 Indian Premier League (IPL) auction England all-rounder Ben Stokes was the big-money signing after joining the Rajasthan Royals for £1.4million.
Stokes was one of six players purchased for more than £1m as the IPL teams spent big at the auction held in Bangalore on Saturday and Sunday. All-rounder Stokes is joined at the Rajasthan Royals by England team-mate Jos Buttler (£490,000) and Jaydev Unadkat, who was the most expensive Indian player at £1.26m. Sussex bowler Jofra Archer (£793,200) has also signed a deal with the Royals.
Eight England players have signed IPL deals but Test captain Joe Root and one-day skipper Eoin Morgan remained unsold and will miss out on the 2018 edition.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
According to ZeeNews, 169 players were sold in total at the IPL auction, including 113 Indian players and 56 non-Indian. England’s eight players are joined by 17 from Australia, eight from South Africa, seven from New Zealand and seven from the West Indies.
The top ten deals at the 2018 IPL auction were:
- Ben Stokes, Rajasthan Royals: £1.4million
- Jaydev Unadkat, Rajasthan Royals: £1.26m
- KL Rahul, Kings XI Punjab: £1.2m
- Manish Pandey, Sunrisers Hyderabad: £1.2m
- Chris Lynn, Kolkata Knight Riders: £1.05m
- Mitchell Starc, Kolkata Knight Riders: £1.03m
- Glenn Maxwell, Delhi Daredevils: £992,200
- Rashid Khan, Sunrisers Hyderabad: £992,200
- Krunal Pandya, Mumbai Indians: £970,300
- Sanju Samson, Rajasthan Royals: £882,100
In our IPL guide we look at the squads, how the season works and how to watch it on TV.
Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 guide
What is the IPL and when does it start?
The IPL is a Twenty20 cricket tournament featuring eight teams. The 2018 edition will be the 11th year and the season starts on 7 April. There will be a total of 60 matches played across India with nine venues hosting games across 51 days. The final will take place on 27 May in Mumbai.
Which teams play in the IPL?
There are eight IPL franchises: Chennai Super Kings (winners in 2010 and 2011); Delhi Daredevils; Kings XI Punjab; Kolkata Knight Riders (winners in 2012 and 2014); Mumbai Indians (winners in 2013, 2015 and 2017); Rajasthan Royals (winners in 2008); Royal Challengers Bangalore; Sunrisers Hyderabad (2016).
How does the IPL season work?
The eight teams will play each other twice in a home-and-away format. At the end of the double round-robin group stage the top four teams will qualify for the play-offs. The top two teams face off in the qualifier one round and the third and fourth-placed teams play in the eliminator round. The winner of qualifier one goes straight through to the final, while the loser plays the victor of the eliminator match for a place in the 27 May showpiece event.
How to watch the IPL on TV in the UK
Sky Sports has announced a new multi-year deal to broadcast the IPL. From the 2018 season, Sky Sports will show 60 live matches each year in the UK and Ireland.
IPL team squads: how they will line up in 2018
Teams have a squad size of 18 players minimum and 25 maximum. There is also a maximum of eight overseas players in each squad.
- Chennai Super Kings (25 players): MS Dhoni*, Ravindra Jadeja*, Suresh Raina*, Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo. Karn Sharma, Shane Watson, Shardul Thakur, Ambati Rayudu, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Faf Du Plessis, Mark Wood, Sam Billings, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Mitchell Santner, Lungisani Ngidi, Asif K M, N Jagadeesan, Kanishk Seth, Monu Singh, Dhruv Shorey, Kshitiz Sharma, Chaitanya Bishnoi
- Delhi Daredevils (25 players): Rishabh Pant*, Shreyas Iyer*, Chris Morris*, Glenn Maxwell, Kagiso Rabada, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Mohammad Shami, Gautam Gambhir, Trent Boult, Colin Munro, Daniel Christian, Jason Roy, Naman Ojha, Prithvi Shaw, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Avesh Khan, Abhishek Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Harshal Patel, Manjot Kalra, Sandeep Lamichhane, Sayan Ghosh
- Kings XI Punjab (21 players): Axar Patel*, KL Rahul, Ravichandran Ashwin, Andrew Tye, Aaron Finch, Marcus Stoinis, Karun Nair, Mujeeb Zadran, Ankit Singh Rajpoot, David Miller, Mohit Sharma, Barinder Singh Sran, Yuvraj Singh, Christopher Gayle, Ben Dwarshuis, Akshdeep Nath, Manoj Tiwary, Mayank Agarwal, Manzoor Dar, Pardeep Sahu, Mayank Dagar
- Kolkata Knight Riders (19 players): Sunil Narine*, Andre Russell*, Chris Lynn, Mitchell Starc, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Kuldeep Singh Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Nitish Rana, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Mitchell Johnson, Shubman Gill, Ranganath Vinay Kumar, Rinku Singh, Cameron Delport, Javon Searless, Apoorv Vijay Wankhade, Ishank Jaggi
- Mumbai Indians (25 players): Rohit Sharma*, Hardik Pandya*, Jasprit Bumrah*, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Kieron Pollard, Pat Cummins, Evin Lewis, Suryakumar Yadav, Ben Cutting, Mustafizur Rahman, Rahul Chahar, Pradeep Sangwan, Jason Behrendorff, Jean-Paul Duminy, Saurabh Tiwary, Tajinder Dhillon, Akila Dhananjaya, Nidheesh M D Dinesan, Aditya Tare, Siddhesh Dinesh Lad, Mayank Markande, Sharad Lumba, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan
- Rajasthan Royals (23 players): Steve Smith*, Ben Stokes, Jaydev Unadkat, Sanju Samson, Jofra Archer, Krishnappa Gowtham, Jos Buttler, Ajinkya Rahane, Darcy Short, Rahul Tripathi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Zahir Khan Pakteen, Ben Laughlin, Stuart Binny, Dushmantha Chameera, Anureet Singh, Aryaman Vikram Birla, Midhun S, Shreyas Gopal, Prashant Chopra, Jatin Saxena, Ankit Sharma, Mahipal Lomror
- Royal Challengers Bangalore (24 players): Virat Kohli*, AB de Villiers*, Sarfaraz Khan*, Chris Woakes, Yuzvendra Singh Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Brendon McCullum, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Quinton De Kock, Mohammed Siraj, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Colin De Grandhomme, M. Ashwin, Parthiv Patel, Moeen Ali, Mandeep Singh, Manan Vohra, Pawan Negi, Tim Southee, Kulwant Khejroliya, Aniket Choudhary, Pavan Deshpande, Anirudha Ashok Joshi
- Sunrisers Hyderabad (25 players): David Warner*, Bhuvneshwar Kumar*, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Rashid Khan Arman, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha, Siddarth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Carlos Brathwaite, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Shreevats Goswami, Mohammad Nabi, Chris Jordan, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Sachin Baby, Bipul Sharma, Syed Mehdi Hasan, Ricky Bhui, Tanmay Agarwal
* Retained players
Mason Greenwood: footballer arrested on suspicion of rape and assault
Handball: swapping bikini bottoms for tight pants
Cristiano Ronaldo’s second coming
Bank holidays and boycotts: are MPs trying to jinx England?
Weightlifting: Olympic Games set for transgender first
Sport shorts: Champions League expansion plan to be agreed
Sport shorts: Sturgeon slams Rangers fans over title celebrations
Sport shorts: Klopp’s unwanted record as Liverpool lose again at Anfield
