Eight Franchises buy 155 players for Rs.2.73 crores at 2nd edition of T20 Mumbai League Player Auction
Mumbai, 5thMay 2019: Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA)Saturday organized the Player Auction for the highly anticipated 2ndedition ofT20 Mumbai League. The 2019 edition witnessed 155 players picked up by the eight franchises that will compete for the title. The league is to be held from 14th – 26th May at the iconic Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
From a total budget of Rs. 2.8 crores the 8 teams – Mumbai North East Triumph Knights, Shivaji Park Lions, ARCS Andheri, North Mumbai Panthers, NaMo Bandra Blasters, SoBo Supersonics, along with the newly inducted teams, Eagle Thane Strikers (Mumbai Eastern Suburbs) and Aakash TigersMumbai Western Suburbs collectively spent Rs. 2.73 crores
Before the Player Auction, the 6 continuing teams of Season 1, retained 11 players including Suryakumar Yadav and Akash Parkar(Mumbai North East Triumph Knights); Shivam Dube and Siddhesh Lad (Shivaji Park Lions); Shubham Ranjane and Tushar Deshpande (ARCS Andheri); Prithvi Shaw (North Mumbai Panthers); Shreyas Iyer and Eknath Kerkar (NaMo Bandra Blasters); and Jay Bista and Dhrumil Matkar (SoBo Supersonics).
Each franchisee had to form a squad comprising a maximum of 20 players and a minimum of 18 players and they were committed to spend a maximum of INR 35 lakhs and a minimum of INR 30 lakhs on its squad.
The auction consisted of three categories of players namely Senior Players, Emerging Players, and Developmental Players. The Senior Players are players that have represented Mumbai in a First Class Trophy/List A/T20 match, whereas Emerging Players are players that have played from Mumbai in other national domestic tournaments in the U-19 or U-23 age groups. The Developmental Players comprise of players who have represented any MCA affiliated club or team.
The base price for senior players, emerging players, and developmental players was Rs.1 lakhs, Rs. 75,000 and Rs. 50,000 respectively.
The Player Regulations for the league made it mandatory for each Team to include a minimum of four Senior Players, and a minimum aggregate of four players from Emerging Players and Developmental Players category in the squad.
The maximum that any team could bid for a Senior Player was capped at Rs.5 lakhs, while the cap was Rs. 5 lakhs for the other categories.
The 6 continuing teams had the Right to Match (RTM) the bid for a player that had played with them in the debut season. The 2 new teams, meanwhile, had the Opportunity to Match (OTM) the bid for any player that had not played for any team in the 2018 edition that they may want to include in their squad.
There was fervent bidding amongst team owners, all looking to put together a competitive squad for season two, with Charu Sharma the auctioneer, kept on his toes right till the end of auction day.
Key figures from the T20 Mumbai League 2019 Player Auction
· Total number of players sold: 140
· Total number of players retained & drafted: 15
· Total money spent: Rs. 2.73 crores
· Total number of Senior players sold: 41
· Total number of Emerging& Developmental Players sold: 114
· Total Number of players retained by six teams: 11
Squads for Each Team given in the attached excel workbook, along with pictures from Auction Day.
