IPL Auction 2019 number cruncher: Varun Chakravarthy hits jackpot, Yuvraj Singh suffers drastic fall, Windies players in demand and more

Seamer Jaydev Unadkat and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy both won contracts worth more than a million dollars at Tuesday’s player auction for the 2019 Indian Premier League twenty20 tournament.

The Rajasthan Royals bought back the 27-year-old Unadkat for 84 million Indian rupees ($1.2 million) at the auction in Jaipur, after letting the left-arm seamer go following this year’s tournament.

Kings XI Punjab paid Rs 8.4 crore for Varun Chakravarthy at IPL Auction 2019. TNPL

They had paid 115 million rupees for Unadkat, who has represented the national team in all three formats, for the IPL this year, making him the most expensive Indian buy in the last edition of the cash-rich tournament.

Kings XI Punjab paid the same amount to bag the services of uncapped Tamil Nadu spinner Chakravarthy, who only had a base price of 2 million rupees.

The 27-year-old started his career as a wicketkeeper-batsman, then took a break from the game to return as a seam-bowling all-rounder. A knee injury forced him to take to spin bowling, and he has only played one first-class game.

The auction sprung more surprises on a day when unknowns turned millionaires and veterans went unsold. We bring you IPL auction 2019 in numbers.

- There were 70 slots up for the grabs in IPL Auction 2019 but only 60 players were bought including 20 overseas players. The total money spent by eight franchises in the auction was Rs 1,06,80,00,000.

- Jaydev Unadkat (RR) and Varun Varun Chakravarthy (KXIP) were the most expensive buys of IPL Auction 2019. Both were bought for Rs 8.40 crore each.

- Chakravarthy's ratio of selling price (INR 8.40 crore) to base price (INR 20 lacs) of 42.00 was the highest in IPL Auction 2019. He is now also the joint second-most expensive uncapped buy in IPL Auction.

- Sam Curran was the most expensive overseas buy of IPL Auction 2019. He was bought by Kings XI Punjab at the price of Rs 7.20 crore.

- Yuvraj Singh was picked up Mumbai Indians for Rs 1 crore. It will be his sixth IPL team which is the joint second most for any player. He was bought by RCB at the price of Rs 16 crores in IPL Auction 2015 which means his rate reduced by 93.75 per cent from 2015.

- There were six West Indies players bought in the auction which is the most from an overseas country - Carlos Brathwaite, Keemo Paul, Nicholas Pooran, Oshane Thomas, Sherfane Rutherford and Shimron Hetmyer.

- There were five players born in this century bought in this year's auction - Devdutt Padikkal (RCB), Prayas Ray Barman (RCB), Prabhsimarn Singh (KXIP), Rasikh Dar (MI) and Riyan Parag (RR).

- At the end of the auction, Kolkata Knight Riders had 21 players in their squad which is the least among all the teams while three teams - Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals had the maximum squad size (25).

With inputs from Reuters