IPL player auction: 5 first-timers in the race for IPL 11

A file photo of Under-19 team captain Prithvi Shaw. Photo:Getty Images

New Delhi: On Saturday, eight Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises will bid to acquire the best talent for the popular T-20 league’s 11th edition. With 578 players—244 capped and 332 uncapped and 2 cricketers from associate nations—this is the biggest pool up for auction in the history of IPL.

Capped players have a salary cap which goes up to Rs2 crore, while uncapped players do not have a salary cap and their base price is set at Rs20 lakh.

With 18 players retained, 182 slots are up for grabs. The league is known to be a hunting ground for the discovery of new talent. This year 63 players, including Under-19 team captain Prithvi Shaw, will be part of the IPL auction for the first time. All these are uncapped players with their base price set at Rs20 lakh. Here’s a list of some of these players.

Prithvi Shaw (18): Shaw is an Indian cricketer and the captain of Indian Under-19 team, who plays for Middle Income Group Cricket Club in Mumbai and was the captain of Rizvi Springfield High School and the Mumbai Under-16 team. He is a right hand batsman and right-arm off-spin bowler all-rounder whose abilities as a cricketing prodigy have led to repeated comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar. He made his first-class (an official classification of the highest standard international or domestic matches) debut for Mumbai in the semi-finals of the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy on 1 January 2017. He scored a century in the second innings and was named man of the match.

Shubham Gill (18): Gill is an Indian cricketer. In February 2017, he was part of the Indian U-19 win against England. He made his List A (a classification of the limited-overs or one-day form of the sport ) debut for Punjab in the 2016-17 Vijay Hazare Trophy on 25 February 2017. He made his first-class (an official classification of the highest standard international or domestic matches) debut for Punjab in the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy on 17 November 2017. Later the same month, in his second first-class match, he scored his maiden century, batting for Punjab against Services.

Ravi Srinivaasan Sai Kishore (21): Kishore made his List A debut for Tamil Nadu in the 2016-17 Vijay Hazare Trophy on 12 March 2017. He made his first-class debut for Tamil Nadu in the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy on 14 October 2017. He made his T20 debut for Tamil Nadu on 8 January 2018 in the Zonal T20 League.

Himanshu Rana (19): Rana (born 1 October 1998) is an Indian cricketer who plays for Haryana in domestic cricket. He is a right-handed batsman and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler. Rana made his first-class debut against Delhi in January 2015 at the age of 16 and top-scored for Haryana with 80 in that match.

Prashant Chopra (25): Chopra born in Himachal Pradesh was in the 2012 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup champion India Team. Chopra represents Himachal Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy and holds the record of most runs by a Himachal Pradesh batsman in a Ranji Trophy season.