NEW DELHI: ‘Eye-popping’, ‘jaw-dropping’ were some of the terms that surely popped into the minds of cricket fans when Australian pacers Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins fetched staggering amounts in the IPL 2024 auction in Dubai on Tuesday.
Starc became the most expensive player in the IPL history with a bid of Rs 24.75 crore, minutes after his skipper Pat Cummins fetched Rs 20.50 crore pay cheque.Shortly after Cummins garnered an astounding bid from Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders upped the ante by presenting an even more substantial salary package for the left-arm pacer, who had last participated in the IPL back in 2015.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra voiced his dissatisfaction over the hefty price tags the Aussie pacers secured. He expressed the view that it is unfair to players of the caliber of Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah, who have the potential to break all records if they are to enter the auction pool.

“If Mitchell Starc plays all 14 games and bowls his full quota of four overs, each ball will cost Rs 7,60,000. Astonishing. But here’s a question. Who is the world’s best bowler? Who is the IPL’s best bowler? His name is Jasprit Bumrah. He gets Rs 12 crore and Starc almost 25. That’s wrong. I don’t grudge anybody’s money. I wish everyone gets paid a lot but how is this fair?” Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel.
Chopra further added that if Kohli and Bumrah request their respective franchises for release, they will end up having a bid of Rs 42 crore and 35 crore respectively.
“It’s the Indian Premier League. How is one getting paid so less and the other so much? Loyalty is royalty. If tomorrow, Bumrah tells MI ‘Please release me and I’ll put my name in the auction’. Or if Kohli says the same to RCB, their prices will rise, right? And that’s how it should be? If this auction market decides that Starc’s price is Rs 25 crore, then it will also decide that Kohli should be worth Rs 42 crore, or Bumrah 35 crore. If that isn’t happening, there is a fault.”

Chopra also proposed a solution to address discrepancy, suggesting the implementation of a cap on the spending capacity for foreign players.
“One solution to this is to put a cap on the money kept for overseas players. For example – if you have a purse of Rs 200 crore to assemble a team, out of which 1.5 or 1.75 is for Indian players, and the remaining for foreigners. When this happens, it will give you parity, which right now doesn’t exist. You can sense disparity at the moment, which is not a good thing. Pretty sure SRH looked at Cummins as a captaincy option. If not, Rs 20.50 crore makes no sense. Not for somebody who doesn’t have the greatest IPL record. Class player but his T20 numbers are 50-50,” he added.