IPL Auction 2024: RCB Loses Lakhs Due To Mallika Sagar’s Huge Mistake- The 2024 IPL Auction took place yesterday at the Coco-Cola Arena in Dubai, and it was the first time in the Indian Premier League’s history that a female auctioneer was present. Mallika Sagar was the auctioneer this time, making her the first female auctioneer in IPL history.
She was also the WPL auctioneer. But Mallika Sagar made a huge mistake during the 2024 IPL Auction which led to RCB suffer a loss of 20 lakh rupees.
The mistake occurred when the bidding war for Windies Pacer Alzarri Joseph was going on. Alzarri was bought by The Royal Challengers Bangalore for a whopping 11.50 crore rupees making him the 2nd most expensive West Indian player in the history of the Indian Premier League.
Nicholas Pooran holds the record of the most expensive West Indian player in the history of the Indian Premier League as he was bought by the Lucknow Super Giants for a huge sum of 16 crore rupees in the 2023 IPL Auction.
Alzarri entered the 2024 IPL Auction with a base price of 1 crore rupees and Chennai Super Kings opened the bidding for him. However, Delhi Capitals and, subsequently, Lucknow Super Giants and RCB entered the race. The bidding proceeded and when the bid reached 6.40 crore rupees, a brief pause occurred and when the bidding process resumed, Auctioneer Mallika Sagar made a costly mistake.
The bidding process for Alzarri Joseph was supposed to resume with a bid of 6.60 crore rupees and when RCB lifted the paddle in-order to make a bid, Mallika Sagar mistakenly called it a bid of 6.80 crore rupees and the bidding continued until it reached a sum of 11.50 crore rupees and RCB bought Alzarri for that price.
If the bid had been called correctly, Alzarri Joseph would have been sold to RCB for 11.30 crore rupees, but owing to Mallika Sagar’s blunder, the franchise from Bangalore purchased the pacer for 11.50 crore rupees, suffering a loss of 20 lakh rupees.
This is not the 1st time that such a mistake has occurred at the IPL Auction. Charu Sharma made a similar mistake during the 2022 IPL Auction when Khaleel Ahmed was sold to the Delhi Capitals for 5.25 crore rupees but the actual bid was of 5.50 crore rupees as Mi had already made a bid of 5.25 crores.
When the Delhi Capitals raised the paddle again, Charu Sharma mistakenly called it a bid of 5.25 crores and the monitor also showed a bid of 5.50 crore rupees was made but it later changed due to the mistake of Charu Sharma and Khaleel Ahmed was bought by the Delhi Capitals for 5.25 crore rupees.
Full Squad of Royal Challengers Bangalore post the conclusion of the 2024 IPL Auction:
Faf du Plessis (C), Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Rajat Patidar, Cameron Green (Traded in from MI), Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Mahipal Lomror, Will Jacks, Manoj Bhandage, Karn Sharma, Mayank Dagar (Traded in from SRH), Akash Deep, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Reece Topley, Mohammed Siraj, Rajan Kumar, Himanshu Sharma, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh and Saurav Chauhan .
Players bought by RCB at the 2024 IPL Auction– Alzarri Joseph (11.50 crore rupees), Yash Dayal (5 crore rupees), Tom Curran (1.50 crore rupees), Lockie Ferguson (2 crore rupees), Swapnil Singh ( 20 lakh rupees) and Saurav Chauhan (20 lakh rupees).
Also Read- IPL 2024 Auction: After Auction Complete Squads for All Teams | Most expensive players
For more information, check out the official website of ICC