Every year, the IPL auction is a cricketing fortune-changer, spilling millions in cricketers’ bank accounts the world over. The 2024 auction was no different, particularly for the Australians.
Several Australian cricketers entered the auction, all with dreams of competing for cricket’s most prestigious domestic short-form competition, one that not only bloats their bank accounts but inflates their standing in India to God-like.
However, just five more walked away with contracts for the season ahead. In a loaded cricketing schedule, where players’ rest periods are constantly shrinking, these guys have forgone comfort for the chance at glory.
Over the years we’ve seen Australians collect a pretty penny at the IPL auction, including the likes of Cameron Green, Shane Watson, David Warner, and Shane Warne. These are guys who had their bank accounts bloated
This year was no different, with two Aussie superstars breaking the record for the highest-ever bid during the same night. Without further ado, here’s a recap of every contract earned by an Aussie in the auction.
Australians with new 2024 IPL auction deals
Here are the Aussies and their subsequent fortunes, considering that there are plenty of other Aussie stars already contracted with teams.
Unsold for 2024
Steve Smith, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Lance Morris, & Ben Dwarshuis
While these five, which include three ODI World Cup winners, might feel saddened by their inability to snag a contract at the auction, their hopes of competing in the IPL 2024 aren’t completely binned.
Unsold players can be signed as an injury replacement either before the season starts or mid-season.
6. Ashton Turner
Price: $178,000 AUD
Team: Lucknow Super Giants
Ashton Turner is a remarkable consistent short-form batsman, and has been for several years. The captain of the extremely successful Perth Scorches, Turner isn’t exactly a lights out short-form batsman in the mould of David Warner or Shane Watson, but he’s a steady head within the chaos, a true batting line up anchor.
That being said, he’s scored back-to-back half-centuries in the 2022 and 2023 Big Bash finals, which the Scorchers were victorious in.
5. Jhye Richardson
Price: $892,000 AUD
Team: Delhi Capitals
An exceptional short-form bowler, Jhye Richardson’s career has been hampered by injuries in recent years. But, that’s not to say he isn’t one of the finest T20 bowlers around when healthy.
In 64 Big Bash matches the fast bowler has 90 wickets, 16th most in competition history, at an average of 19.38, the eighth highest of any player in competition history with at least 20 games under their belt.
A fit and firing Richardson is likely to be great value for money for the Delhi Capitals. Coach Ricky Ponting will know this and hope the Aussie can improve his sides fortunes in IPL 2024.
Richardson joins fellow Australians David Warner and Mitch Marsh at the Capitals, who are also boosted by the prospects of England’s Harry Brook swinging the willow for them this season.
4. Travis Head
Price: $1.22 million AUD
Team: Sunrisers Hyderabad
“We expected him to go more,” remarked Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Daniel Vettori. His side might’ve arguably snagged the draft’s biggest bargain in securing the services of Travis Head, one of world cricket’s most blistering batsman.
Head averages just short of 30 in T20 internationals, but has a strike rate of 146. Expect his innings to be short and quick. Nominally an opening batsman in cricket’s shortest format, his shot arsenal is exceptional, and often mindblowing. How does someone so small possess such effortlessly great power?
Off the back of the 2023 ODI World Cup, the South Australian is arguably in the zenith of his short-form batting. In Australia’s semi-final victory against South Africa his contribution of 62 was more crucial than any of his teammates’, but his best came in the final, when he smashed 137 of the 241 Australia needed for victory. A true gamebreaker.
3. Spencer Johnson
Price: $1.78 million AUD
Team: Gujarat Titans
Towering quick Spencer Johnson caps a momentous 2023 where he debuted for Australia in ODIs and T20s by becoming the third highest paid Australian in the auction. His new employers, Gujarat Titans, fell agonisingly short of victory in the 2023 IPL competition.
It will be hoped Adelaide-born Johnson’s short-ball nous and blistering pace are enough to elevate them one better and bring the trophy to Ahmedabad. Such is the ferocious speed with which the left-arm slings balls down the pitch, he clocked a mind-boggling 150km/h in just his second Big Bash game.
2. Pat Cummins
Price: $3.66 million
Team: Sunrisers Hyderabad
At one point in the auction, Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins set the record for the highest ever IPL bid. It didn’t last long. Australia’s finest seamer since Glenn McGrath, Cummins has 55 wickets in 50 T20 Internationals at an average of 24.55.
He joins a Sunrisers side coached by Australian assistant coach and former Kiwi spinner, Dan Vettori, with the likes of South African guns Aiden Markram and Marco Jansen, and England’s Adil Rashid, forming a strong squad hoping Cummins’ arrival gives them the necessary bowling edge to win it all.
1. Mitchell Starc
Price: $4.42 million
Team: Kolkata Knight Riders
Eight years after his last appearance in the tournament, Australia’s towering lefty re-entered the IPL auction with a bang! Arguably the most dangerous short-form bowler on his day, with a scything yorker that would rip even wickets buried in concrete from the ground, collected a record-breaking $4.42 million bid.
Starc explained a core driver of his decision to return to the competition is the upcoming T20 Cricket World Cup, hosted in the West Indies and USA during June of 2024. In 2015, Starc’s last outing in the IPL, he claimed 20 wickets in 13 matches, the fifth most any player.
Since then, the left-arm quick has won the 2015 and 2023 ODI World Cup’s, as well as the 2021 T20 World Cup. He will be looking to add both the 2024 IPL and T20 World Cup to his trophy cabinet, if there’s room.
