It’s early in the day in Perth, and Rishabh Pant looks rather crude. The southpaw is all sprawled up on the floor after getting stumped by Alex Carey off Nathan Lyon as India looked to up the ante and put Australia away for good measure in the first Test. Pant wasn’t having the best of days, shaking his head on his long walk back to the pavilion. Only a few hours later, though, one can safely assume that the blundering memory was relegated to history.After all, he had been bought by the Lucknow Super Giants for ₹27 crore during the auction in Jeddah on Sunday to become the most expensive player in the history of the Indian Premier League.While on expected lines, watching the tally creep up while Lucknow, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Punjab Kings, and the Sunrisers played tug-of-war for the generational talent in the presence of spectators was riveting. Only a year ago, it wasn’t certain if Pant would be able to get onto a cricket field again after a near-fatal accident, and here he was—well, his name at least—getting swarms of attention to most likely become the next captain of Lucknow.What made this sale even more impressive is the fact that Pant managed to hog the limelight even though Shreyas Iyer had only minutes ago become the most expensive player in the history of the IPL after being bought by Punjab Kings for ₹26.75 crore. Inferring from the push for both Pant and Iyer, franchises were looking to pick up captains to take them through the next season and possibly the ones to come.Once again, Lucknow, despite picking up Pant already, went after Iyer before losing traction soon. Then it was a long-standing tussle between RCB and KKR before the former pulled out.Big-money trends were bucked as there was only so much splurging happening in the direction of foreign players. Jos Buttler was the highest foreign pick, with Gujarat Titans spending ₹15.75 crore for his talent. Mitchell Starc, who only last season was the highest-paid player in history at ₹24.75 crore, was snagged by Delhi Capitals for a relatively underwhelming ₹11 crore.In all, the day was productive for the purveyors of cricket, with three of the top five most expensive buys coming in this edition of the auction.
