Injured quick to set pace in IPL auction

AUSTRALIAN quick Mitch Starc may miss the Boxing Day Test but he is in for a multimillion-dollar payday in January’s supersized Indian Premier League auction.

And Aussie captain Steve Smith could make mega bucks too as the best batsman in the world looks for a new team after the demise of his Pune outfit.

Starc’s bruised heel will be assessed by team medical staff today as he battles to come up for the MCG clash, with Jackson Bird ready to replace him,

Caution is the order of the day for national selectors who need Starc fit not only for a big summer of white-ball cricket when the Ashes concludes, but also a Test tour of South Afri- ca. And the big paceman also needs to be injury free for the IPL, held in April, with a likely contract in excess of $2 million headed his way.

Starc has missed the past two IPL tournaments but with a lighter international schedule for Australia through the middle of the year — one day games in England in June, T20s in Zimbabwe and a Test series against Pakistan in the UAE in August — he and several other national stars are set to make themselves available to play.

The IPL salary cap has increased by 20 per cent for each franchise next season, on the back of a new $3.2 billion TV deal. Teams can now spend up to $16 million on their squads, which is 10 times what Big Bash teams can offer players.

Starc was bought for $973,000 in the 2014 IPL Auction but it’s expected he should earn up to three times more when the auction is held on January 27 and 28 in Bangalore.

Smith, who captained Pune this year, was playing for the bargain basement price of just $666,000, and his new deal could also be triple that figure.

England all-rounder Ben Stokes became the IPL’s highest paid international player last year, bought for $2.8 million by Pune. Shane Warne holds the record for an Australia player when he went for $2 million in 2011.

Each IPL team needs to submit a list of players it wishes to retain in early January, before the final pool of players available for the auction will be confirmed around January 18.

Teams can only sign five international players and this year 21 Australians were spread across the eight outfits. But 10 Aussies who nominated for this year’s auction, including the BBL’s leading run scorer Ben Dunk, did not get picked up.