What the franchises did to bolster their squads

Chennai Super Kings did not bid for a single batsman. They picked up five bowlers instead, which Gurunath Meiyappan, who was part of the Super Kings auction team, said was their sole objective. They failed to buy seamers RP Singh and James Faulkner; and could not buy allrounders Abhishek Nayar and Thisara Perera either. Dirk Nannes was their first buy, but their most surprising purchase was South Africa's bowling allrounder Chris Morris for $625,000, an amount that was more than 31 times his base price. Soon after getting Morris, Super Kings went after the Sri Lankan spinner Sachithra Senanayake too, but lost him to Kolkata Knight Riders.

Towards the end of the auction they picked up Australian seamer Ben Laughlin, Sri Lankan spinner Akila Dananjaya and the towering West Indian quick Jason Holder, all at base price. They also contested for Australian quick Kane Richardson but were outbid.

By buying five overseas players, Super Kings exhausted their quota of 11 foreigners. They have 11 slots available for Indian players.

Players bought: Dirk Nannes ($600,000), Chris Morris ($625,000), Ben Laughlin ($20,000), Akila Dananjaya ($20,000), Jason Holder ($20,000).

Updated squad: MS Dhoni, M Vijay, S Anirudha, Suresh Raina, Wriddhiman Saha, S Badrinath, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shadab Jakati, B Aparajith, Vijay Shankar, Michael Hussey, Ben Hilfenhaus, Faf du Plessis, Albie Morkel, Nuwan Kulasekara, Dwayne Bravo, Dirk Nannes, Chris Morris, Ben Laughlin, Akila Dananjaya, Jason Holder. (Players bought today in italics)

Delhi Daredevils entered the auction with only $1.4 million in their purse and three slots remaining for overseas players. They spent about half that on filling those vacancies. Johan Botha and Jeevan Mendis, who was bought at base price, bolstered a weak spin attack, and Jesse Ryder could provide cover for when Kevin Pietersen and Ross Taylor leave for Test duty.

Daredevils also bid for the Indians Abhishek Nayar, Jaydev Unadkat and Pankaj Singh but fell away because of budget constraints. They have seven slots left for Indian players.

Players bought: Johan Botha ($450,000), Jesse Ryder ($260,000), Jeevan Mendis ($50,000)

Updated squad: Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, Naman Ojha, Ajit Agarkar, Yogesh Nagar, Umesh Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem, Varun Aaron, Unmukt Chand, Pawan Negi, Manpreet Juneja, Kedar Jadhav, Siddharth Kaul, Sujit Nayak, Venugopal Rao, Mahela Jayawardene, Ross Taylor, David Warner, Roelof van der Merwe, Kevin Pietersen, Morne Morkel, Andre Russell, Gulam Bodi, Johan Botha, Jesse Ryder, Jeevan Mendis

Kings XI Punjab were the least active franchise at the auction. They bid for two players and got them: Australian batsman Luke Pomersbach, who played for them in previous IPL seasons, and Indian medium-pacer Manpreet Gony, who comes from Punjab. Going into the auction, they had $6.9 million left in the purse to fill slots for eight Indians and four foreigners. They spent only $800,000 and bought one of each.

Players bought: Luke Pomersbach ($300,000), Manpreet Gony ($500,000)

Updated squad: Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, Mandeep Singh, Siddharth Chitnis, Nitin Saini, Sunny Singh, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, Paul Valthaty, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Harmeet Singh Bansal, Parvinder Awana, Rajagopal Sathish, Manan Vohra, Adam Gilchrist, Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, David Miller, Ryan Harris, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Azhar Mahmood, Luke Pomersbach, Manpreet Gony

Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders didn't bid for anyone for more than an hour, and then they went after West Indies captain Darren Sammy, only to lose him. They bid aggressively for Ajantha Mendis too, raising visions of Mendis and Sunil Narine bowling in tandem on the spinner-friendly Eden Gardens pitches, but couldn't close the deal on him either. Only after nearly three hours and 45 minutes did they make their first buy and it was another Sri Lankan spinner Sachithra Senanayake, for $625,000. The eyebrow-raising price confirmed their desire to have another spinner to back-up Narine. Later on, they bought South African allrounder Ryan McLaren at base price, filling the gap they had intended to fill with Sammy.

Knight Riders did not bid for anyone else and their two purchases exhausted their quota of 11 overseas players. They have ten spots open for Indian players.

Players bought: Sachithra Senanayake ($625,000), Ryan McLaren ($50,000)

Updated squad: Gautam Gambhir, Manoj Tiwary, Debabrata Das, Manvinder Bisla, Yusuf Pathan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Rajat Bhatia, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Iqbal Abdulla, Shami Ahmed, Pradeep Sangwan, Sarabjit Singh Ladda, Eoin Morgan, Brad Haddin, Brendon McCullum, Shakib Al Hasan, Ryan ten Doeschate, Jacques Kallis, Brett Lee, James Pattinson, Sunil Narine, Sachithra Senanayake, Ryan McLaren

The big spenders once again splurged, filling up their quota of overseas players by buying five for a total cost of $2 million. Half of that went to securing the services of Glenn Maxwell, who was the only millionaire in this auction, for whom they made the opening bid of $200,000.

Mumbai began the bidding for the day, making a late entry to buy Ricky Ponting at base price of $400,000. They will now have the two highest run-scorers in Tests in a Twenty20 dressing room. Mumbai missed out on Pomersbach, but bought Phillip Hughes at base price immediately after. They also bought Australian fast-bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile for a surprisingly high price, considering he was the only uncapped player sold today, but got Jacob Oram on the cheap. All their purchases were from Australia and New Zealand.

The other ones that got away were Ravi Rampaul, Ajantha Mendis, Morris, and Senanayake. They have spots for five more Indian players.

Players bought: Ricky Ponting ($400,000), Phillip Hughes ($100,000), Glenn Maxwell ($1 million), Nathan Coulter-Nile ($450,000), Jacob Oram ($50,000)

Updated squad: Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, Amitoze Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Pragyan Ojha, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Aditya Tare, Pawan Suyal, Suryakumar Yadav, Sushant Marathe, Yuzvendra Chahal, Rishi Dhawan, Jalaj Saxena, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Aiden Blizzard, James Franklin, Mitchell Johnson, Dwayne Smith, Ricky Ponting, Phillip Hughes, Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jacob Oram.

Pune Warriors spent the most at this IPL auction - $2.5 million - on three overseas players and one Indian, bringing their squad strength to 33, the maximum number of players allowed. The bought a potential captain in Michael Clarke at base price, fought hard for Ajantha Mendis and were successful, secured the most sought after Indian in Abhishek Nayar, and splashed $700,000 on 21-year old fast bowler Kane Richardson, who's played one ODI for Australia. They also bid unsuccessfully for Botha and Nannes.

What they did not do, however, is bid for a wicketkeeper-batsman - and they had variety to choose from - which means Robin Uthappa will continue doing a makeshift job in a specialist's role.

Players bought: Michael Clarke ($400,000), Ajantha Mendis ($725,000), Abhishek Nayar ($675,000), Kane Richardson ($700,000).

Updated squad: Robin Uthappa, Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik, Rahul Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Manish Pandey, Yuvraj Singh, Raiphi Gomez, Mithun Manhas, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ali Murtaza, Harpreet Singh, Anustup Mazumdar, Krishnakant Upadhyay, Mahesh Rawat, Shrikant Wagh, Dheeraj Jadhav, Eklavya Dwivedi, Ishwar Pandey, T Suman, Udit Birla, Angelo Mathews, Alfonso Thomas, Wayne Parnell, Marlon Samuels, Luke Wright, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Tamim Iqbal, Michael Clarke, Ajantha Mendis, Abhishek Nayar, Kane Richardson.

Towards the end of the auction Rahul Dravid, who was at the Rajasthan Royals table, said they wanted bowlers who could bowl at the death, because that discipline had been a problem area the previous season, and were happy with the fast men they had bought: Australia's James Faulkner and West Indian Fidel Edwards. They had also bid unsuccessfully for RP Singh, Nayar, Jaydev Unadkat and Coulter-Nile. Rajasthan's only other buy was Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman Kushal Perera at base price, which was a little odd considering they had released another Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Chandimal in November.

They had $7.7 million left in their purse and spent only $630,000, the least among all the franchises. They have slots open for eleven Indians and one overseas player.

Players bought: James Faulkner ($400,000), Fidel Edwards ($210,000), Kushal Perera ($20,000)

Updated squad: Rahul Dravid, S Sreesanth, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Menaria, Stuart Binny, Siddharth Trivedi, Ankeet Chavan, Shreevats Goswami, Ajit Chandila, Harmeet Singh, Dishant Yagnik, Shane Watson, Shaun Tait, Brad Hodge, Brad Hogg, Kevon Cooper, Owais Shah, Samuel Badree, James Faulkner, Fidel Edwards, Kushal Perera.

Before the auction, Royal Challengers Bangalore had eight players in their squad who could bowl various kinds of seam. Yet, they felt the need to stock up in that department and bought seven more seamers - four specialists and three allrounders. At one stage they had bought three quicks in a row - Unadkat, Pankaj Singh and Ravi Rampaul - and could have had a fourth had Kings XI not outbid them for Manpreet Gony. The other players Royal Challengers bid for unsuccessfully were Nayar, Thisara Perera, Ryder and Morris.

Their most left-field pick was West Indian bowling-allrounder Christopher Barnwell, and they also managed to get Dan Christian at base price. In all, Royal Challengers bought the most players at the auction - seven - and have slots left for one more Indian player and one more foreigner.

Players bought: RP Singh ($400,000), Moises Henriques ($300,000), Jaydev Unadkat ($525,000), Pankaj Singh ($150,000), Ravi Rampaul ($290,000), Christopher Barnwell ($50,000), Dan Christian ($100,000).

Updated squad: Vinay Kumar, Arun Karthik, Karun Nair, S Aravind, Mayank Agarwal, Vijay Zol, Abhimanyu Mithun, KP Appanna, Virat Kohli, Harshal Patel, Syed Mohammad, Cheteshwar Pujara, Zaheer Khan, Saurabh Tiwary, Abhinav Mukund, Sandeep Warrier, Sunny Sohal, P Parameswaran, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Muttiah Muralitharan, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Daniel Vettori, Andrew McDonald, RP Singh, Moises Henriques, Jaydev Unadkat, Pankaj Singh, Ravi Rampaul, Christopher Barnwell, Dan Christian.

"Great result at @IPL auction, thrilled with player selection for @SunRisersIPL, filled all slots as planned," said Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody on Twitter soon after the player auction.

Sunrisers Hyderabad, who replaced Deccan Chargers in the IPL, were in an auction for the first time. They had retained 20 of the old Chargers, and had slots open for 13 players (eight Indian, five overseas). They focused on beefing up their bowling attack and picked up three allrounders and two specialist quicks, bidding high for Thisara Perera and Darren Sammy and buying the others at base price. The ones that got away were RP Singh, Maxwell, Nayar, Gony, Edwards and Morris, all of whom were bought for high prices by other franchises.

Players bought: Thisara Perera ($675,000), Darren Sammy ($425,000), Sudeep Tyagi ($100,000), Nathan MCullum ($100,000), Quinton de Kock ($20,000), Clint McKay ($100,000)

Updated squad: Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Akash Bhandari, Akshath Reddy, Amit Mishra, Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, Ashish Reddy, Bharat Chipli, Biplab Samantray, Dwaraka Ravi Teja, Ishant Sharma, Parthiv Patel, Shikhar Dhawan, Veer Pratap Singh, Cameron White, Chris Lynn, Dale Steyn, Rusty Theron, Kumar Sangakkara, Thisara Perera, Darren Sammy, Sudeep Tyagi, Nathan MCullum, Quinton de Kock, Clint McKay.