Dhoni highest paid player after round 1 bidding

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MUMBAI: Mahendra Singh Dhoni outshone the likes of Adam Gilchrist and Muttiah Muralitharan as the Chennai franchisee of the Indian Premier League (IPL) made a whopping USD 1.5 million bid (approximately Rs six crore) to win the Indian one day captain here.

Dhoni was clearly the star of the first round bidding with the Chennai franchisee making an aggressive bid for the flamboyant stumper-batsman.

The Hyderabad franchisee won Gilchrist with a USD 700,000 (app Rs 2.8 crore)bid, less than half of what Dhoni managed.

The Chennai side also managed to rope in Sri Lankan off-spinner Muralitharan for USD 600,000 (Rs 2.4 crore).

Retired Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne was bought by Jaipur for USD 450, 000, while Mahela Jayawardene will be seen playing for the Mohali team, which shelled out USD 475,000 for the Sri Lankan captain.

Pakistan's enigmatic speedster Shoaib Akhtar was won by the Kolkata team for USD 425,000.

Veteran Sri Lankan opener Sanath Jayasuriya, at 39 among the oldest in the 77-player auction, was bought by Mukesh Ambani's Team Mumbai for USD 9,75,000, the second-highest winning bid after two rounds. Team Mumbai, which did not successfully bid for any of the six players in the opening round, went hammer and tongs in the second round and outbid others to capture the services of India's number one limited overs slow bowler Harbhajan Singh for 850,000 USD.

The side already has the services of icon player Sachin Tendulkar who was not part of the pool at yesterday's auction.

The Mumbai franchisee will now have to tread carefully in getting the remaining players for its team as they have exhausted USD 1.8 million out of the USD 5 million cap in buying out 'Matara Marauder' Jayasuriya and 'Turbanator ' Harbhajan.

The cap includes the amount to be paid to Tendulkar which would be 15 per cent over and above their highest player bid in the auction, which after two rounds is the winning bid for Jayasuriya.