Ramps to join Indian Premier League at age of 40
Jan 17 2010 - 19:49:05
Ramprakash, 40, will be one of 66 cricketers hoping for a deal at the third IPL auction in Bombay on Tuesday, where teams have a purse of $750,000 to spend. Rob Key was also included on the finalised auction list released on Sunday which was missing the names of former England players James Foster and Usman Afzaal, who a week ago had been hoping to make the final cut.
Key and Ramprakash, two of the most consistent performers in the Twenty20 Cup, join Eoin Morgan, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott, Monty Panesar and Anthony McGrath looking to attract one of the eight franchises. The auction, which will be held at the Oberoi/Trident Hotel in Mumbai, scene of the 2008 terrorist attacks, is expected to see about 12 cricketers earn one-year contracts after an intense weekend of negotiating which has seen several franchises pay off underperforming players to free slots in their side.
Glenn McGrath left Delhi earlier this month, Rajasthan have released South African Twenty20 specialist Tyron Henderson and Chennai have lost Andrew Flintoff after his latest knee operation. The IPL auction is a carefully stage-managed publicity stunt that sees players traded, or humiliatingly left unsold, by some of the most powerful businessmen in India.
Last year it was all about the English, with Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen becoming the IPL's highest earners with $1.5million contracts. This year Kieron Pollard of Trinidad and Pakistan's Shahid Afridi are expected to be the biggest winners. IPL auction time is normally an occasion for a raft of new sponsorship deals. The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the IPL are close to agreeing a contract with Google which will see matches streamed across the internet. Many IPL sponsorship deals are incremental in connection with the league's exposure, making the Google contract a potentially lucrative partnership.
