Recap: IPL 2018 Auction Day 1 Report

Bengaluru, Jan 27 - England all-rounder Ben Stokes and Indian youngsters Manish Pandey and Lokesh Rahul emerged as the most valuable players at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction here on Saturday. Debut season winners Rajasthan Royals (RR) secured Stokes

He eventually went to Hyderabad at 11 times his base price as Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) decided not to exercise the Right to Match (RTM) option.

Rahul started at a low base price of Rs 50 lakh. But a bitter tussle between Punjab and Hyderabad greatly inflated his price before the former took him for a whopping Rs 11 crore.

Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan sprung one of the big surprises at the auction by commanding a price of Rs 9 crore. Kings XI Punjab won the bidding for the 19-year-old, but Sunrisers Hyderabad clinched his services at the last moment by exercising the RTM option. 

The Australian trio of Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc and Chris Lynn were also sold for hefty prices along with young Indian all-rounder Krunal Pandya, wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson, star off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, Kedar Jadhav and Dinesh Karthick.

Surprisingly, Krunal attracted the second highest price among Indians at the auction after going to Mumbai Indians (MI) for Rs 8.8 crore. The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) won the bid for Krunal before Mumbai decided to scoop him up with the RTM option.

Samson was another surprise with Rajasthan deciding to fork out Rs 8 crore for his services. 

With a base price of Rs 1 crore, he was at the centre of considerable interest before the Royals beat off competition from several other teams.