Celebrated Auctioneer Richard Madley Recalls How MS Dhoni Triggered A Bidding War At IPL Auction In 2008

During a conversation with veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel, Richard Madley recalled the first IPL auction.

Celebrated auctioneer Richard Madley, Pic Courtesy: AFP / Twitter

New Delhi: Famous auctioneer Richard Madley, who handled the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction 10 years ago, recalled the first season of the IPL when former Indian captain MS Dhoni triggered a tremendous bidding war among the franchises. Richard Madley revealed how Chennai Super Kings managed to bag MS Dhoni in the inaugural season of the popular T20 tournament in 2008.

In the year 2007, under the captaincy of MS Dhoni, the Indian cricket team had won the ICC Men's T20 World Cup title and for this reason he had created a massive hype. This is the reason why many teams showed interest in buying Dhoni during the first IPL auction in 2008. Thus, the star wicketkeeper-batter was roped in by CSK for a whopping USD 1.5 million at the time.

During a conversation with veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel, Richard Madley recalled the first IPL auction. He said, "I remember the second player coming out of the bag that day was Shane Warne. I thought okay here's Warnie and this will be interesting, his base price was I think around 400000 US dollars. That's what he sold for at his base price to Rajasthan Royals and I thought at that time that was a smart move."

Just found my one and only auction sheet for the historic first ever #VIVOIPL auction in 2008.@msdhoni sold to @ChennaiIPL A rare piece of cricket memorabilia
Will be watching #CSKvMI on @hotstarUK #CricketMeriJaan #WhistlePodu #VIVOIPLFinal pic.twitter.com/5M5qY2tPy5

— Richard Madley (@iplauctioneer) May 12, 2019

The popular auctioneer asserted that it was MS Dhoni who kickstarted the 'first bidding war of many' at IPL auction.

"For the next 10 years, I watched Rajasthan Royals be the coolest bidders in the room. They never got excited, Manoj Badale was just cool and a pattern started to emerge. Then out of the bag came the man himself, the ultimate all-rounder Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and there we saw the first bidding war of many in the IPL auctions," he added.