Most Expensive IPL Players of All-Time

Playing in a cash-strapped league like the IPL isn’t easy or everyone would be doing it. Prior to every season the is an auction held and all teams bid for each player. On some occasions, there will come a player who is so talented and in demand that the price will keep hiking until he is sold to the highest bidder. What makes these players special? Today, we look at the most expensive IPL players of all-time.

Most Expensive IPL Players

On Thursday, all eight teams gathered in Mumbai for the process of retention. The Royal Challengers Bangalore used up 3 of their Retention cards on that day and one of the retentions was Virat Kohli. It was a costly move, but in their mind, it was worth every penny. Back in 2017, Kohli was in the form of his life. He smashed 2818 runs across all the formats for India that year.

Kohli has been associated with RCB since season 1 of the league. In all 10 seasons, 4418 runs from 149 matches came off his bat at an average of 37.44. He also had the honour of becoming the fastest player to reach 4000 runs in IPL history. 2016 was his best season where he recorded 973 runs including four centuries at an average of 81.08. When Kohli was retained, he had a hefty price-tag of 17 crores.

Back in 2015, Yuvraj Singh was the player on demand and the Delhi Daredevils bagged and tagged him. An astounding 16 crore was spent on the southpaw. This catapulted him to the number 1 spot in the Most Expensive IPL Players list, until Kohli came along this year. Rewind to a year ago, he was top of the pile again when RCB paid 14 crore to recruit him. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bad investment for them due to his poor form and fitness. So RCB released him the following year and he was snapped up by Delhi.

The Sunrisers Hyderabad released Yuvraj for this year’s auction. Though he is without a team, his past exploits, experience and flamboyance is a huge bonus for any team.

When CSK returned to the foray, it was obvious that MS Dhoni would reunite with them. Thursday was just about putting pen to paper at the IPL 2018 player retention. But what stunned everybody was the price tag, a whopping Rs 15 crore. Even more surprising was that it was the base salary for the first retained player. Mahi’s return has created a buzz among the fans. Under Dhoni’s leadership, Chennai Super Kings won two trophies and reached four finals in eight years of the tournament.

After the team’s suspension, Dhoni played for the Rising Pune Supergiant in the last two seasons. The Ranchi native has 3561 runs from 159 matches under his belt in the IPL.

Defending champions Mumbai Indians opted to retain their captain Rohit Sharma. He went for the same amount as MS Dhoni – Rs 15 crore. It was fairly obvious that the 3-time champions would retain their captain. Under Rohit’s helm, Mumbai won the most IPL titles of any team in the tournament.

‘Hitman’ has been playing for Mumbai since 2011 and became captain in 2013. Since then, he has never looked back and guided the team to 3 championships. As if that wasn’t a testament to his leadership skills, he captained India to ODI and series victories against Sri Lanka. Sharma is fully expected to help Mumbai defend their title in 2018.

The only foreign player on our list, Ben Stokes was the most sought after player in 2017’s IPL auction. His base price was Rs 2 crore and the bidding war was expected to reach new heights. The Mumbai Indians tried to jump the gun before the auctioneer Richard Madley could name his base price. When i say it was a bidding war, i meant, it WAS a bidding war. All eight franchises threw their hat in the ring. There was an aggressive battle between Mumbai Indians (MI), Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Delhi Daredevils (DD) for him.

Finally, Rising Pune Supergiant had the last word and a fee of Rs 14.50 crore. Stokes was in brilliant form since last year and was one of the star England players. The all-rounder walloped 316 runs and snagged 12 wickets from 12 games for the RPS. Stokes rounds out our list of expensive IPL players.