The third IPL auction - a more low-key affair than before given that many big names had already been bought and there was a cap of $750,000 - has concluded in Mumbai.

As predicted in The Times, Eoin Morgan was the only England player to find favour, picked up by the Bangalore Royal Challengers for $220,000. Middlesex, Morgan’s county, are resigned to barely seeing the left-handed batsman next season. They have given him their blessing to compete in the whole IPL, in return for which the county will receive 10 per cent of his sale price - about £13,500 in English money.

The IPL starts in mid-March and goes on until April 25. If Bangalore reach the final, Morgan will have to hotfoot it straight away from Mumbai to Guyana, where he will be expected to play for England in their opening World Twenty20 match against West Indies. That tournament concludes on May 16 and Middlesex may see their man for a couple of weeks before he will be required again by England in a one-day series against Australia.

He then goes back to Middlesex for August before having to turn out in blue yet again for a one-day series against Pakistan. Just as well he isn’t a Test cricketer - yet. And at least Middlesex will see more of Andrew Strauss, a useful enough replacement for Morgan, than they might usually do.

Here are the winners and losers from the rest of the auction:

Winners

* Kieron Pollard: the West Indies all-rounder, left, was a huge hit in India during the Champions League Twenty20 in October, particularly during the first of his two matches for Trinidad against New South Wales, when he scored a fifty at three runs a ball. He can bowl well too, and justifies the maximum bid of $750,000 that Mumbai Indians paid for him.

* Shane Bond: the New Zealand fast bowler also went for the maximum $750,000 to Kolkata Knight Riders. His reserve price of $100,000 was fairly low, but bidding was frenzied Read more…

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Does the Board of Control for Cricket in India care for Indian cricket? More pertinently, should it care for Indian cricket?

Not according to its senior counsel and advocate KK Venugopal who five years ago in the Supreme Court made a statement that shocked cricketers and cricket fans throughout the country

— ‘If India plays England, it is a match played by the official team of BCCI and not the official team of India…We do not even fly the national flag nor do we use any national emblem in the activities of the Board.’’

Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and the rest play for the official team of the BCCI, Venugopal went onto add and not the official team of India.

A group of former ‘India’ players expressed their sense of outrage and hurt in a joint letter to the BCCI President claiming they had always felt honoured to represent the country and were now distressed by the Board’s stand. One is not aware if the Board bothered to respond to them.

The International Cricket Council has recently introduced the playing of the national anthem before each match in their tournaments including the Champions Trophy in South Africa. The sight and sound of foreigners beautifully rendering ‘Jana Gana Mana’ with the ‘Indian’ team proudly standing to attention was one of the few highlights of another disappointing tournament for our cricket fans.

Perhaps it is time for the BCCI to inform the ICC that India’s national anthem should not be played before their matches and the BCCI could pay a handsome fee to AR Rehman for the use of ‘Jai Ho’ instead of ‘Jana Gana Mana’. Or else the Indian government may be forced to intercede on this matter considering the BCCI’s stated legal stand.

The inaugural Champions League being played between the top 12 Twenty20 teams from around the world (excluding Pakistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) is the latest bogus Read more…

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