IPL Auction 2018 : Stokes tops bidding & Aussie stars go big on day 01

109 players went under the hammer, 78 were sold and 31 remained unsold

And that concludes the first day of the auction!  

England's star all-rounder Ben Stokes topped the Indian Premier League auction on Saturday selling for $1.96 million despite a looming court case for assault
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      Chris Lynn's batting fireworks have earned him a whopping AUD1.86 million after he was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders in Saturday's Indian Premier League auction.
Lynn was the highest-paid Australian on day one of the player auction, ahead of Mitchell Starc ($1.8 million to KKR), and Glenn Maxwell, who was bought by Ricky Ponting's Delhi Daredevils for $1.75 million.

 
IPL Team rosters (so far)
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, Sarfaraz Khan, AB de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Chris Woakes, Colin de Grandhomme, Moeen Ali, Quinton de Kock, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Manan Vohra (UC), Kulwant Khejroliya (UC), Nandeep Saini
Kolkata Knight Riders: Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Chris Lynn, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill (UC), Ishank Jaggi (UC), Nitish Rana, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Aniket Choudhary
Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Faf du Plessis, Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Ryudu, Imran Tahir, Karn Sharma,
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, Mustafizur Rahman, Pat Cummins, Surya Kumar (UC), Ishan Kishan
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shikhar Dhawan, Shakib Al Hasan, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Carlos Brathwaite, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Rashid Khan, Ricky Bhui, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan
Delhi Daredevils: Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Chris Morris, Glenn Maxwell, Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Mohammad Shami, Kagiso Rabada, Amit Mishra, Prithvi Shaw (UC), Harshal Patel (UC), Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Avesh Khan
Rajasthan Royals: Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, Ajinkya Rahane, Stuart Binny, Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, Rahul Tripathi (UC), Jofra Archer (UC), D'Arcy Short (UC)
Kings XI Punjab: Axar Patel, Ravi Ashwin, Yuvraj Singh, Karun Nair, KL Rahul, David Miller, Aaron Finch, Marcus Stoinis, Mayank Agarwal (UC), Ankit Singh Rajpoot,

The first surprise of the night belonged to the big gun Chris Gayle, who went unsold. He can be bought later on in the auction.

Interesting move by CSK

Who says T20 cricket is a young man's game? Surely not Chennai Super Kings! At the end of the first day's auction, they have 11 players in the squad, with Ravindra Jadeja (29) being the youngest of them all and also the only one not in his 30s.

It was a bizarre move as Chennai Super Kings rarely even showed interest in younger players, let alone pursuing bids for them for long or buying them. Stephen Fleming, Chennai Super Kings' head coach, explained the rationale behind the move and in other words basically said, 'No, it's not really a youngster's game'.

The first day of the auction saw a lot of attention on uncapped cricketers as some of the teams filled up nearly half their squads. As many as 31 players went unsold, some of who might get a second chance to be snapped up on Sunday.
catch up on day 2
Till then cheers......