In a Game of Millionaires, No Value for Ganguly

The Indian Premier League's 2011 auction began in Bangalore on January 8 with a spectacle of spending: 88 players went under the hammer on day one, 15 new millionaires were created, and 16 players went home unsold.

The headline buy was Gautam Gambhir, snapped up by Kolkata Knight Riders for $2.4 million over two years — the highest contract of the day. KKR then set the tone for the entire auction, adding Yusuf Pathan for $2.1 million and Jacques Kallis for $1.1 million, spending more than half of their $9 million salary cap on three players before lunch.

The day belonged to Indian players: seven of the 15 millionaires were home-grown. The two new franchises made their mark early — Kochi signed Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene for $1.5 million, the day's priciest overseas buy, while Pune Warriors took Robin Uthappa for $2.1 million and Yuvraj Singh for $1.8 million. Chennai Super Kings, the defending champions, went the other way, quietly retaining eight players from their winning campaign and staying within a restricted budget.

The shock of the day was who nobody wanted. Sourav Ganguly — "Dada," the former India captain — went unsold, alongside Brian Lara, Chris Gayle, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, and Mark Boucher. On Twitter, where the auction was the day's hottest topic, the reaction was disbelief: in a game of millionaires, there were no takers for one of Indian cricket's most decorated captains.

History softened the verdict. Ganguly was signed by Pune Warriors India as a replacement player later that season, getting his IPL farewell on his own terms — but the auction room's silence that January afternoon remains one of the IPL's starkest moments.