Mahendra Singh Dhoni attracted the highest price of US$1.5 million (euro1.02 million) per season in the first round of bidding on Wednesday for players in the lucrative new Indian Premier League.Chennai acquired the services of Indian limited-overs captain Dhoni, a 26-year-old wicketkeeper batsman from the eastern city of Ranchi, on a three-year contract to kickstart the Twenty20 IPL competition.
Sri Lanka's aggressive opening batsman and former skipper Sanath Jayasuriya, 38, attracted the next highest bid _ US$975,000 (euro661,380) from Mumbai, which also paid US$850,000 (euro576,583.91) for Indian offspinner Harbhajan Singh.
Australia's retiring vice captain Adam Gilchrist and Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara were auctioned for identical US$700,000 (euro474,834) fees.
Industrialist Ness Wadia, seated near Bollywood actress Preity Zinta of the northern Mohali team, raised a card to begin bidding for Gilchrist at US$375,000 (euro254,375), but the Australian wicketkeeper-batsman eventually went to southern India's Hyderabad team.
Mohali then bid aggressively to secure Sangakkara from the second lot of players.
Dhoni, Gilchrist and Muralitharan were among the six ``marquee players'' who were pegged as the biggest drawcards and started the bidding session at a seafront Mumbai hotel, but several players from the next list attracted higher bids.
India test captain Anil Kumble, who has retired from limited-overs internationals and did not feature in India's Twenty20 world championship winning squad, went to Bangalore for US$500,000 (euro339,170) after bidding opened at the base price of US$250,000 (euro169,580).
The Mohali team picked up Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena for US$475,000 (euro322,210), while retired Australia legspinner Shane Warne went to Jaipur for US$450,000 (euro305,250). The Calcutta squad acquired the services of Pakistan paceman Shoaib Akhtar for US$425,000 (euro288,290).
With the successful bids for Dhoni and Muralitharan, Chennai had outlayed more than 40 percent of its US$5 million (euro3.4 million) spending cap on two players.
Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf and retired Australian strike bowler Glenn McGrath did not attract their reserve price and were placed in the reserve pool. Bids for reserve pool players will be made at the end of the auction.
Yousuf is fighting a legal battle against the rebel Indian Cricket League, which already secured his signing, while McGrath has not played international cricket for more than a year. He had more test wickets than any other fast bowler.
The winning bids were disclosed by Lalit Modi, chairman of the IPL governing body.
``We're all very excited, this is a tremendous day for world cricket,'' Modi said before the auction began.
All bidding is being done electronically in a sealed room, where eight teams owned by a variety of Indian companies in the petrochemical, cement and infrastructure businesses are vying for 78 of the world's finest cricketers.
India's star batsmen Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly attended the auction along with billionaire businessman Vijay Mallya and Bollywood movie stars Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta, who each are part owners in teams.
The IPL reserved four ``icon'' players from the auction _ team captains Ganguly (Calcutta), Yuvraj Singh (Mohali), Sachin Tendulkar (Mumbai) and Dravid (Bangalore) _ who are guaranteed 15 percent more than the highest-paid player at their franchise.
Tendulchar stands to earn US$1.15 million from Mumbai after the second round of bidding, earning 15 percent more than the amount paid for Jayasuriya.
Dravid was hunched over a table alongside businessman Mallya, owner of the Bangalore team, while Ganguly was on a separate table with the crew from the eastern Calcutta team owned by actor Khan.
Each of the franchises repeatedly checked details on a computer that elaborated the list of players on auction, the number of players already won by the team, available balance and the number of foreign players bought.
A separate big screen showed the names of players won by each squad.
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