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IPL 5 auction: Player availability will be the key

BANGALORE 4 FEB 2012: The eyes of the cricketing world will be on Bangalore, and in particular the Mysore Hall at the ITC Royal Gardenia, as it hosts the Indian Premier League's auction on Saturday.

A total of 144 players, including eight Indians, will go under the hammer. The auction will be conducted by Richard Madley, by now a familiar face on the IPL circuit. With a total purse of $16.94 million between the nine teams in the fray, a majority of the players are unlikely to be bid for. No wonder, then, that most of the glamorous owners of the IPL franchises might be conspicuous by their absence. "Things will be wrapped up in a couple of hours," was the common refrain among franchise representatives, among whom were some really big names of Indian cricket, none more so than Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly, the two former Indian skippers planning the strategies for the Bangalore.htm class=con_name2>Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sahara Pune Warriors respectively. Both will trade their cricketing colours for smart suits but Ganguly, of course, will be playing in the IPL and mentoring the team too. The one other common thread running amongst the franchisees was that ex-Kochi Tuskers all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja would be most in demand. "He did his case no harm today, did he," said one official, referring to Jadeja's Man of the Match show in Melbourne. It was India's first win on the tour but Jadeja and another ex-Kochi player - R Vinay Kumar - could be the bigger beneficiaries of the fine performance at the MCG on Friday. But with just eight Indians in the fray, naturally the foreign hand cannot be ignored. As English pacer James Anderson joked in Dubai, saying he would be leaving his phone with the square leg umpire in order to stay in touch, the proceedings will be followed keenly. Like the English, the Sri Lankans too are on tour, in Australia for the tri-series, and many of them including skipper Mahela Jayawardene, will have more than just one eye on what's happening in Bangalore - after all they seem to be on unpaid duty for their country, so the IPL riches will take on far more importance. At least in the case of the Lankans, they can take part in almost the entire IPL 5, their home Test series against England ending on April 7, just three days after the tournament kicks off. With the English and the Australians, that is not the case and they will miss a fair bit of the action, leaving the franchisees with a lot of homework to do before they make their bids. The franchisees have been given the exact availability of each player who has put up his name for the auction but there was a lot of cross-checking prior to Friday's briefing session. Courtesy:TOI

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