Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan turned out to be the most expensive buy when the players’ auction of the second edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) T20 was held at a posh city hotel yesterday.
He was bought for 365,000 dollars by the Dhaka Gladiators. In fact, contrary to general expectations, it was the Bangladesh players who overshadowed their foreign counterparts in terms of bidding prices.
The second-most expensive local player of the tournament was Nasir Hossain who was bought for 208,000 dollars by the Rangpur Riders, the new side in the meet. National skipper Mushfiqur Rahim was bought by Sylhet for 205,000 dollars while dashing left-handed batsman Tamim Iqbal went to Duronto Rajshahi for 165,000 dollars.
Amongst the foreign high-earners, Pakistani Imran Nazir was bought by Chittagong Kings for 280,000 dollars, followed closely by fellow countryman Shahid Afridi who was bought by the Dhaka Gladiators for 275,000 dollars.
While this year’s auction did lose some shine with big hitters Kieron Pollard and Chris Gayle pulling out of the T20 league before the auction, the loss however was somewhat recuperated with the late additions of Sri Lankans Lasith Malinga and Tillakaratne Dilshan. Both Malinga and Dilshan were bought by the Gladiators for 115,000 and 75,000 dollars respectively.
Due to the ‘salary cap system’ put into effect in this year’s auction the players, apart from getting their highest possible ‘capped-value’, 30 per cent of the additional price will be added to the capped value. Therefore, the highest earner of the second edition of the BPL was Nazir (base price: 75,000 dollars, bid price: 28,000 dollars), who earned approximately 189,000 dollars. Afridi was next with 187,500 dollars.
As for Shakib, his low cap value of 75,000 dollars meant that he’d earn approximately 162,000 dollars this time.
Source:The Daily Star
