Pietersen, Flintoff become most expensive IPL players

Panaji: England's Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff fetched $1.55 million each at the Indian Premier League player auction Friday, setting a record for the highest amount paid for players in the Twenty20 competition.

Flintoff was snapped up by Chennai Super Kings, which last year set the previous record of $1.5 million for India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Bangalore's Royal Challengers secured Pietersen.

Bangalore's owner Vijay Mallya said he was prepared to pay more for Pietersen.

"It was a very worthwhile investment," Mallya told reporters after the first round of bidding. "Team balance was important and Kevin was certainly important in maintaining that balance."

England players were not involved in the IPL last year, but have now been permitted by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to play for the first three weeks despite a clash with its own domestic season.

South African JP Duminy, who starred in his nation's recent successful tour of Australia, was sold for $950,000 to Mumbai Indians, more than three times his reserve price.

Australia paceman Shaun Tait was the first player auctioned, going to defending champions Rajasthan Royals for $375,000, where he will join former Australia teammate Shane Warne.

Rajasthan then made aggressive bids to buy both Pietersen and Flintoff, but could not get either. They later bought New Zealand's Jesse Ryder for $160,000.

The most dramatic bidding came for Bangladesh's Mashrafe bin Mortaza, whose reserved was set at $50,000 but soared to 12 times that amount before Kolkata Knight Riders clinched him for $600,000.
His Bangladesh teammate Mohammad Ashraful went to Mumbai Indians at the base price of $75,000 in the second round after most teams had exhausted their 10-player quota of foreign players.

The prices are for each year of two-year contracts. Last year, the teams had to sign contracts for three years at bid prices.

Cricketers will get paid on a prorata basis depending on their availability for the duration of the six-week tournament. The 2009 IPL season will be held from April 10 to May 29. While England players will only be available for the opening weeks, Australian players will only join late after national team duty.

South Africa's Tyron Henderson fetched the fourth-highest price, going to Rajasthan for $650,000, more than six times his base price, while England all-rounder Ravi Bopara went for $450,000 to King's XI Punjab.

Delhi Daredevils bought England pair Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah for $275,000 each, while Deccan Chargers picked up the West Indies pair of Fidel Edwards ($150,000) and Dwayne Smith ($100,000).

Kyle Mills of New Zealand went to Mumbai Indians for $150,000, while Chennai Super Kings added Sri Lanka's Thilan Thushara to their lineup for $140,000.

West Indies pacemen Jerome Taylor went for his base contract price of $150,000 to King's XI Punjab, while George Bailey, who plays for Australia's Tasmania state team, was the cheapest acquisition at $50,000 to Chennai Super Kings.

Of the 50 players available for bidding, those who did not attract bids included Australia's Stuart Clark and Phil Jaques, England's Luke Wright and Samit Patel, South Africa's Gulam Bodi and Morne van Wyk, and Sri Lanka pair Chamara Kapugedera and Nuwan Kulasekara.

This year's auction was different to that of 2008, when teams had to pick their entire squad. This time they only had to top up their playing lists with a few players to fill in vacancies.

The IPL governing body permitted franchisees to terminate the contracts of the players from Pakistan bought at last year's auction after Pakistan's government prevented its cricketers playing in this year's event owing to political tension between the south Asian neigbours.