Vikrant Shekhawat : Feb 12, 2021, 08:49 PM
Cricket Desk: The much-anticipated auction for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 is less than a week away. The auction, which will be a mini one, is scheduled to take place on February 18 in Chennai. The BCCI has already published the list of the players who will be going under the hammer during the auction.The base price of the players has been released too. A total of 292 players will be taking part in the auction. The original list contained the names of 1,114 players before it was pruned to 292 after the eight franchises submitted their respective shortlists. A total of 164 Indian players, 125 overseas players, and 3 players from Associate nations will be up for grabs in the auction.While 292 players are available in the auction, a total of only 61 players can be bought by the eight franchises to complete their squads. Based on the base price the 292 players have been divided into eight categories. The highest base price is Rs 2 crore while the lowest is Rs 20 lakh. Other base prices are Rs 1.5 crore, 1 crore, 75 lakh, 50 lakh, 40 lakh, and 30 lakh. So before the auction takes place, we are taking a look at the players who have registered themselves at Rs crore.Players with the highest base price in IPL 2021 auctionA total of 10 players have registered themselves in the highest slab of the base price. The list contains two players from India, five players from England, two from Australia and one from Bangladesh. India stars Harbhajan Singh and Kedar Jadhav are the highlights in this list. Both the players were part of the Chennai Super Kings squad in IPL 2020 which was held in the UAE.Harbhajan had pulled out of the entire tournament citing personal reasons while Kedar had a disastrous outing as CSK failed to make it to the playoffs for the first time in their history. The other players in this list are Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Jason Roy, Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Mark Wood, Liam Plunkett, and Shakib Al Hasan.Maxwell and Smith were released by their respective franchises after failing to impress in the last IPL and could cause a bidding war in the upcoming auction. Shakib is another player who is likely to invite big bids in the auction. The Bangladesh ace had missed the last edition of the tournament because of the one-year ban imposed on him by the ICC for failing to report the bookie approach.