Ben Stokes, Jaidev Unadkat Rake In The Moolah In IPL Auction 2018

It was festive cheer for England all-rounder Ben Stokes, who lit up the Indian Premier League 2018 auction being purchased by Rajasthan Royals for a whopping Rs 12.5 crore. The inaugural IPL winners, who made a return from suspension after two years, also secured India’s left-arm seamer Jaidev Unadkat for a whopping Rs 11.5 crore.
Meanwhile, history was made when Sandeep Lamichhane became the first Nepal cricketer to be bought by an IPL side. Lamichhane was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils for his base price Rs 20 lakh. Meanwhile, Canada wicketkeeper Tariq Hamza was also picked as the duo became the only two players part from Associate nations in the 580-player auction list.
Lamichhane, 17, first came into limelight when he took a hat-trick against Ireland at the 2016 ICC U-19 World Cup as Nepal entered the quarterfinals of the tournament for the first time in their cricket history.
For the second successive year, the Englishman became the costliest player in IPL to show how much the cricket fraternity is in awe of him in India. Stokes responded on social media site Twitter by saying he is buzzed to represent the Royals.
https://twitter.com/benstokes38/status/957226936404725762
Unadkat, who had an excellent campaign in IPL 2017, raked in the cash after becoming the costliest Indian buy. He finished as the tournament’s second highest wicket taker behind Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Matches: 12, Wickets: 24, Best: 5/30
ALSO READ: Ricky Ponting’s Coaching Alliance With The IPL And Australia Creates Positive Waves
SMILE FOR GAYLE
On the second day of the auction, there was a smile for T20 king Chris Gayle, who was eventually bought by Kings XI Punjab for Rs 2 crore. Everybody in the auction room clapped and cheered when KXIP bid for him when his name came up for the third and final time. He has hit a whopping 265 sixes in his IPL career besides being the Orange Cap holder in 2011 & 2012.
Gayle’s IPL record:

Meanwhile, KL Rahul and Manish Pandey too were amongst the mega earners. The former was purchased by Kings XI Punjab as Pandey went to Sunrisers Hyderabad after impressing for Kolkata Knight Riders over the past few seasons. Australian duo of Chris Lynn and Mitchell Starc  after being bought by KKR to be the second and third costliest foreign players in the auction.
Other notable buys included Australian pace bowler Andrew Tye, who took a hat-trick in the previous IPL season playing for Gujarat Lions, going for Rs 7.2 crore to Kings KI Punjab.
Arguably the steals of the auction came in the form of New Zealand allrounder Colin Munro, the No 1 batsman in T20Is, going to the Delhi Daredevils for Rs 1.9 crore from a base price of 50 lakh. Besides Munro, Aussie pacer Nathan Coulter-Nile was a bargain buy at Rs. 2.2 crore for RCB.
Joining Munro and Glenn Maxwell at Daredevils was Gautam Gambhir, who led KKR to two IPL titles. Coach Ricky Ponting has some serious names in his team and Gambhir will be expected to lead the side after seeing success with KKR.
WATCH: Gambhir’s message after going to Daredevils

Thanks @kkr for all d support. Will miss Kolkata and Eden. Now, time to try and turn it around for @DelhiDaredevils @IPL. Happy to be back… pic.twitter.com/Wx53ilU9ka

— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) January 27, 2018

There was cheer for some of the stars of the India Under-19 players as well with Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shubman Gill going to KKR.
Here is a look at some of the highlights of the auctions.
TOP 5 international recruits

1. Ben Stokes (RR): 12.5 crore
2. Chris Lynn (KKR): 9.6 crore
3. Mitchell Starc (KKR): 9.4 crore
4. Glenn Maxwell (DD): 9 crore
5. Rashid Khan (SRH): 9 crore

TOP 5 domestic recruits

1. J Unadkat (RR): 11.5 crore
2. KL Rahul (KXIP): 11 crore
3. M Pandey (SRH): 11 crore
4. Krunal Pandya (MI): 8.8 crore
5. Kedar Jadhav (CSK): 7.8 crore

Top players Unsold

1. Ishant Sharma (IND)
2. Hashim Amla (SA)
3. Eoin Morgan (ENG)
4. Joe Root (ENG)
5. Martin Guptill (NZ)

Full squads after the auctions: 
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (Retained), AB de Villiers (Retained), Sarfaraz Khan (Retained), Pavan Deshpande, Tim Southee, Murugan Ashwin, Navdeep Saini, Aniket Choudhary, Kulwant Khejroliya, Manan Vohra, Yuzvendra Chahal (RTM), Parthiv Patel, Anirudha Joshi, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Mohammed Siraj, Pawan Negi (RTM), Washington Sundar, Mandeep Singh, Umesh Yadav, Quinton de Kock, Moeen Ali, Colin de Grandhomme, Chris Woakes, Brendon McCullum
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Mehdi Hasan, Bipul Sharma, Shreevats Goswami, Tanmay Agarwal, Ricky Bhui, Rashid Khan (RTM), Wriddhiman Saha, Yusuf Pathan, Carlos Brathwaite, Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Shakib Al Hasan, Shikhar Dhawan (RTM), David Warner (Retained), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Retained), Billy Stanlake, Chris Jordan, Sachin Baby, Sandeep Sharma, Mohammad Nabi, Khaleel Ahmed, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Siddarth Kaul, Deepak Hooda (RTM)
Kolkata Knigh Riders: Dinesh Karthik, Chris Lynn, Mitchell Starc, Sunil Narine (Retained), Andre Russell (Retained), Javon Searles, Mitchell Johnson, Cameron Delport, Shivam Mavi, Rinku Singh, Apoorv Wankhade, Vinay Kumar, Nitish Rana, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Ishank Jaggi, Shubman Gill, Kuldeep Yadav (RTM), Piyush Chawla (RTM), Robin Uthappa (RTM)
Mumbai Indians: MD Nidheesh, Mohsin Khan, Anukul Sudhakar Roy, Akila Dananjaya, Mayank Markande, Evin Lewis, Rahul Chahar, Ishan Kishan, Krunal Pandya (RTM), Suryakumar Yadav, Pat Cummins, Mustafizur Rahman, Kieron Pollard (RTM), Aditya Tare, Siddhesh Lad, Sharad Lumba, TN Dhillon, Jason Behrendorff, Jean-Paul Duminy, Pradeep Sangwan, Ben Cutting, Saurabh Tiwary, Rohit Sharma (Retained), Hardik Pandya (Retained), Jasprit Bumrah (Retained)
Kings XI Punjab: David Miller (RTM), KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Yuvraj Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel (Retained), Manzoor Dar, Chris Gayle, Mayank Dagar, Pardeep Sahu, Ben Dwarshuis, Akshdeep Nath, Andrew Tye, Barinder Sran, Mujeeb Zadran, Mohit Sharma (RTM), Manoj Tiwary, Ankit Rajpoot, Mayank Agarwal, Marcus Stoinis (RTM), Aaron Finch
Delhi Daredevils: Sayan Ghosh, Naman Ojha, Sandeep Lamichhane, Abhishek Sharma, Manjot Kalra, Trent Boult, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Jayant Yadav, Prithvi Shaw, Amit Mishra, Kagiso Rabada (RTM), Mohammed Shami (RTM), Colin Munro, Jason Roy, Gautam Gambhir, Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Christian, Shahbaz Nadeem, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Rishabh Pant (Retained), Chris Morris (Retained), Shreyas Iyer (Retained)
Chennai Super Kings: Imran Tahir, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo (RTM), Harbhajan Singh, Faf du Plessis (RTM), Chaitanya Bishnoi, Monu Kumar, Kshitiz Sharma, Mark Wood, Sam Billings, Murali Vijay, Dhruv Shorey, Kanishk Seth, Lungisani Ngidi, KM Asif, Deepak Chahar, Mitchell Santner, N Jagadeesan, Shardul Thakur, Karn Sharma, MS Dhoni (Retained), Ravindra Jadeja (Retained), Suresh Raina (Retained)
Rajasthan Royals: Jofra Archer, D Arcy Short, Rahul Tripathi, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny, Dushmantha Chameera, Jatin Saxena, Aryaman Birla, Mahipal Lomror, Ben Laughlin, S Midhun, Prashant Chopra, Shreyas Gopal, Zahir Khan Pakteen, Anureet Singh, Ankit Sharma, Jaydev Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni (RTM), Krishnappa Gowtham, Ajinkya Rahane (RTM), Ben Stokes, Steve Smith (Retained)