Stokes, Mills go big; Rashid hits pay dirt

Stokes and Mills entered the milliondollar bracket fetching $2.16 million and $1.8 million respectively from Supergiants, Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan got a $600,000 bid from the Sunrisers

BENGALURU: England allrounder Ben Stokes was the costliest buy at the Indian Premier League (IPL) players’ auction on Monday, going to Rising Pune Supergiants for a whopping 145 million Indian rupees (Rs 14.50 crore) even as some unheralded Indian domestic players also enjoyed a hefty pay day.

The other big buy at the auction was also an England player, leftarm fast bowler Tymal Mills, who was taken by Royal Challengers Bangalore for a mind-boggling 120 million rupees (Rs 12 crore). Also making a splash were young Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan Arman, who stunned one and all by getting a 40 million rupees (Rs 4 crore, $600,000) bid from Sunrisers Hyderabad, and spin-bowling allrounder Mohammed Nabi, also going to SRH.

The uncapped Indian players had a field day too with littleknown Tamil Nadu left-arm seamer T. Natarajan going for 30 million rupees (Rs 3 crore, $448,000) to Kings XI Punjab, 30-fold hike over his base price of 1,000,000 rupees (Rs 10 lakh).

Rajasthan’s left-arm pacer Aniket Chaudhary, who has been a net bowler with the Indian Test squad for some time, also bagged a cool 20 millions rupees (Rs 2 crore, $298,000) deal from RCB.