Bidding wars at the IPL: Which team bid the most/least successfully? Which player attracted the most attention?
Also, which Indian domestic team produced the biggest earners? An analysis of all the bids made at the IPL 2022 auction
Chennai Super Kings were the most active team at the auction - bidding for 50 players - although they bought only 21. Delhi Capitals are second on this list, with at least one bid for 49 players. Royal Challengers Bangalore bid for the least number of players: 35 - and they bought 19 of them. Kolkata Knight Riders were the most effective franchise at the auction table, with a success rate of 55.26% - having bought 21 players of the 37 for whom they made bids.
Sunrisers Hyderabad entered the auction with the second-highest purse of INR 68 crore. Their moves at the auction table reflected this as they came close to buying most of the players who earned high bids. But they couldn't clinch many of these deals, ending up as the losing bidder for 17 players - the most for any team - out of 30.
Fast bowler Avesh Khan, the first uncapped player to touch the INR 10-crore mark in the history of IPL auctions, received the most number of bids this time around. Five teams were in contention to buy him. He started with a base price of INR 20 lakh, and, many minutes later, it was Lucknow Super Giants who made the 62nd and final bid to secure his services.
Ninety-one players were snapped up at their base price. The team that secured the most players at base price was Knight Riders - they made 13 such buys. The fewest such buys was seven each by Sunrisers, Capitals and Gujarat Titans.
Tamil Nadu won the previous two editions of India's domestic T20 tournament, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and fell a run short of the title the year before that. Their consistency in the T20 format translated into their players earning hefty prices at the IPL auction. INR 39.55 crore was spent on 13 players from Tamil Nadu, the biggest amount spent on players from any Indian domestic team.
Sampath Bandarupalli is a statistician at ESPNcricinfo