When you club names like Ajit Agarkar and Joginder Sharma with the likes of Shaun Pollock and Scott Styris and try to sell them off as all-rounders, shouldn't someone be able to call your bluff?
The bidders in the Indian Premier League players' auction disappointed, as Styris ended up being sold for an embarrassingly cheap $175,000. But the New Zealander need not hang his head in shame. Instead, it should be the seven teams that remained silent and let Hyderabad walk off with the all-rounder for his base price.
The Pathan brothers were snapped up for $925,000 (Mohali) and $475,000 (Jaipur) respectively.
The way Lalit Modi heaped praise on Cameroon White, you would be pardoned for mistaking him for being the Twenty20 what Sir Garfield Sobers was for Tests -- Jack of all trades and also master of all.
But if the Aussie national discard turns out to be a fraction of what he is supposed to be, Dr Vijay Mallya can consider his $500,000 well-spent.
Chennai returned to its splurging ways and picked Albie Morkel for US $675,000. Shah Rukh Khan, who we called the shrewdest bidder only a few hours ago, paid US $350,000 for Ajit Agarkar.
At the end of six rounds of bidding Chennai ($4 million), Bangalore ($3.8 million), Mumbai ($3.5 million) and Mohali ($4 million) have the lightest wallets and not enough money to spend on 9, 10 and Jack.
Delhi spent $3.2 million on Maharoof, Dilshan, Karthik, de Villiers, Shoaib Malik, Asif, and Vettori. Hyderabad spent the exact same amount on Gilchrist, Symonds, Gibbs, Afridi and Styris. Beat that.
Jaipur has spent $1.7... On what? We do not know!
Shah Rukh Khan still has half his $5 million to splurge and might easily end up with a million to spare. But, then, that still was not good enough reason to select Agarkar.
