Australians Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Starc, England pacer Ben Stokes and India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin were sold for hefty prices at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction here on Saturday.Maxwell started at a base price of Rs 2 crore and sparked a bidding war between Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kings XI Punjab, Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) before the Delhi Daredevils made a late bid to snap him up for Rs 9 crore.Starc was also at the centre of some hot competition between Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab. Kolkata eventually snapped up the Australian pace spearhead for a whopping Rs 9.4 crore.Punjab had earlier taken Ashwin for Rs 7.6 crore. The star off-spinner, who had started with a base price of Rs 2 crore, was not retained by Chennai Super Kings ahead of the auction.Punjab beat off bidding from Chennai and Rajasthan before sealing the deal.
Punjab had also initially won the bidding war for Dwayne Bravo who had a base price of Rs 2 crore. The Mohali based franchise initially seemed to have taken the West Indies all-rounder at Rs 6.4 crore, but Chennai exercised their right to match and snapped up the player at the same price.Shikhar Dhawan, Kieron Pollard, Ajinkya Rahane and Faf du Plessis were meanwhile brought back by their respective teams using the option of right to match.Veteran off-spinner Harbhajan went to Chennai for his base price of Rs 2 crore as there were no other takers.Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan started at a base price of Rs 1 crore and went for double that amount to Hyderabad after a short tussle with Rajasthan and Kolkata.Gautam Gambhir went to Delhi for Rs 2.8 crore. Yuvraj meanwhile, was taken by Punjab at his base price of Rs 2 crore as there were no other bidders.