Season wise costliest players in the Indian T20 League

We have seen some bizarre battles in the Indian T20 League auction room. It is safe to say that the auction action gains equal attraction as the match itself. It is always exciting to see teams fight each other to get the players they want. There have been instances where teams have held their paddles high and not put them down. While there have been some unexpected prices paid to the players, most have been value for money buys.

In the first-ever season, it was MS Dhoni who saw the best bids. He was paid 9.5 crores in the season by Chennai. His run with the team has been very successful as he has guided the team to four-season titles. He still continues to play for the team after 14 seasons.

The second season saw tied highest bids for Kevin Pietersen (Bangalore) and Andrew Flintoff (Chennai), each was paid 9.8 crores. Kieron Pollard (Mumbai) and Shane Bond (Kolkata) were the highest bids for the 3rd edition at 4.8 crores. Pollard has been Mumbai's best foreign player and continues to play strong.

Kolkata paid 14.9 crores for Gautam Gambhir in the fourth season, which turned out to be their best buy. Gambhir led Kolkata to two championships after that. This buy without a question was their bet buy to date. Chennai paid 12.8 crores for Ravindra Jadeja in 2012, which gave them a great all-rounder for the following years. He completed a decade with the team recently. Glenn Maxwell was paid 6.3 crores in 2013 by Mumbai.

Yuvraj Singh created history by becoming the most expensive player in the history of the tournament. He was paid 14 crores in 2014 by Bangalore and 16 crores by Delhi in 2015. But these seasons were not his best, and he remains the most expensive Indian player to date.

Shane Watson was given 9.5 crores to play for Bangalore in 2016. Ben Stokes was paid 14.5 crores by Pune in 2017, and he guided them to their first-ever final after a poor season in 2016. He was paid 12.5 crores in 2018 by Rajasthan and had a decent run with them.

Jaydev Unadkat (Rajasthan) and Varun Chakravarthy (Punjab) were paid 8.4 crores each in 2019. Both these buys turned out to be disastrous as both had almost no impact on the season. Chakravarthy only played one game that season. Pat Cummins got 15.5 crores by Kolkata in 2020 but was not utilized to his full potential.

Chris Morris broke all the records in 2021 by getting paid 16.25 crores in the auction by Rajasthan. He was not just the season's highest-paid player, but also the highest-paid player in the history of the tournament. He was not at all useful to the franchise and was released ahead of 2022.

List of highest-paid players