KP and Flintoff IPL's most wanted

Derek Pringle writes in the Daily Telegraph that Friday’s IPL auction has made one of cricket’s oldest sledges – playing like a millionaire – redundant. He also wonders whether Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen becoming the most expensive players is a case of image exceeding ability.

Like Becks, KP has the pop star wife, the tattoos, and takes a good photo. He also has friends in celebrity circles ... Still, given there is a global economic meltdown, it is both surprising and gratifying that cricket appears to be recession-proof.

In the Guardian, David Hopps says that the big bucks of the IPL will not cause dressing-room problems because the disparity in earnings of the richest and poorest members of a side have long been vast due to sponsorship deals.

The IPL, as its administrators like to boast, is a classic example of the free market … It is just that, in the free market, no one has a clue any more what anything – or anyone – is really worth.

Barclays were valued at about £15bn at the start of November but only about £4bn last week as shareholders sold in droves. Perhaps they should bundle up some unwanted players like Luke Wright, Samit Patel and any number of Australian state players and flog them off to Deccan Chargers as triple-A securities.

In the same paper, Vic Marks says there was little change in the demeanour of the two millionaires in the England side.

Flintoff bowled like a million dollars, perhaps better than that by current rates of exchange but it took him a long time to get rid of Ramnaresh Sarwan. Maybe there was some justice in the fact that Stuart Broad, who had shunned the IPL, was the man whose toil was most rewarded.

In a tongue-in-cheek piece in the Times, Patrick Kidd provides an account of what transpired in the England dressing room as the auction took place.

The second player auction for IPL Season 2 was less of a grab of big-name overseas batsmen and more a pursuit of bowlers, utility men and, in the case of Kevin Pietersen and Bangalore, some much-needed inspiration, writes Sharda Ugra in India Today.