The bidding for the Saurashtra all-rounder was frenetic and involved four franchises prepared to shell out their entire purse to gain his services, with the two-time defending champions eventually pipping the Hyderabad team to the post. While Jadeja was expected to be the story of the auction, Saturday threw up one big surprise. R Vinay Kumar, for one, would have seemed the unlikeliest of the Indian fast bowlers in the fray to be bought for a seven-figure price. And more so after RP Singh, among the highest wicket-takers in IPL history, had gone for a comparatively measly $600,000 to the Mumbai Indians.

But despite lacking the wicket-taking ability of RP or the theatrical skills of Sreesanth — who was picked up by the Rajasthan Royals for his base price — it was Vinay Kumar who got a million-dollar contract from the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The rest of the day’s proceedings, apart from Pune’s no-show of course, went according to the script.

The Englishmen, never ones overly enthusiastic in their support of the IPL, were ignored as usual. There was a ‘big boast, absolutely no roast’ scenario for England’s high-profile names such as Graeme Swann — who was left ‘unsold’ on two occasions — James Anderson and Ian Bell.

ENGLAND NO-SHOW

Their team’s busy international schedule probably had a role to play. Even the likes of Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah, generally considered valuable commodities in the IPL context, didn’t infuse interest among the franchisees.

A bunch of really low-profile, even unknown, names from the Caribbean, however, managed to create a stir with mystery spinner Sunil Narine ending up as the highest paid West Indian cricketer in the IPL. The 23-year-old Trinidadian, who is yet to feature for the West Indies, in fact attracted the most animated bidding-war of the day, with Mumbai’s Harbhajan Singh openly expressing his team’s disappointment on having lost out to the Kolkata Knight Riders for Narine.

Jamaican all-rounder Andre Russell too was bought for close to 10 times his base-price by the Delhi Daredevils. Russell in all likelihood will be available throughout the IPL unless he gets a call-up to the Test team, which presently seems doubtful. And with hard-hitting batsmen from the Caribbean already having left their mark on the IPL over the years, Trinidadians Kevon Cooper and Darren Bravo also made the cut.

Semi-retired and aging Australian cricketers were in demand as always with the two Bradleys, Hogg and Hodge, attracting impressive bids. The same wasn’t the case for VVS Laxman, however, as the under-pressure Hyderabadi veteran failed to land an IPL contract for the first time.

‘PAKISTAN’ ENTRY

With not many slots empty, most of the franchises proved to be cagey and restrained, especially Kings XI Punjab. Ness Wadia was constantly on the phone with, as he revealed later during the day, Punjab skipper Adam Gilchrist.

The destructive former Australian opener, however, proved to be largely circumspect in his recommendations, resulting in his team being the poorest spenders during the auction. Their only notable buy was Azhar Mahmood, and that too because it marked the return of a Pakistani-origin cricketer in the IPL —though the all-rounder now holds an English passport.

If Punjab were cautious, Mumbai Indians didn’t mind splurging. They did make a few questionable choices while scoring four players at their base-price and also seemed to have a rather ‘leftist’ agenda. Especially so in the case of the injury-ravaged Mitchell Johnson, despite Australia’s busy calendar and having already picked RP, and Robin Peterson, who will join fellow left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha in the slow-bowling department. The Delhi Daredevils played it smart throughout, picking up Mahela Jayawardene (for $1.4 million) and Russell with smart bidding strategies, while the Deccan Chargers were the busiest of the lot.