2018 IPL auction: Rahul Tripathi, Suryakumar Yadav and Prithvi Shaw earn big

NEW DELHI: Rahul Tripathi and Suryakumar Yadav have earned the fattest paycheques from the pool of uncapped batsmen on day one of the 2018 IPL auction in Bengaluru, followed by teenage sensation Prithvi Shaw who despite having not played Twenty20 cricket has earned more than proven IPL performers Manan Vohra and Mayank Agarwal.
Tripathi emerged on top with a price tag of Rs 3.40 crore - 17 times higher than his base price - from Rajasthan Royals, while Yadav - who won an IPL with Kolkata Knight Riders - was valued at Rs 3.2 crore by defending champions Mumbai Indians.Shaw, with a base price of Rs 20 lakh, found his first IPL franchise in Delhi Daredevils, for Rs 1.2 crore, who continued their trend of investing on youth.
Other noticeable purchases were the 18-year-old Punjab batsman Shubman Gill to Kolkata Knight Riders for Rs 1.8 crore, Agarwal for Rs 1 crore to Kings XI Punjab and Vohra to RCB for 1.1 crore.
With 391 runs from 14 innings at a strike-rate of 146.4, Tripathi made a big impact for Rising Pune Supergiants in the last IPL. Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals went after Tripathi, before RCB entered the bidding and raised the stakes to 2 crore. They did no back off until the hammer went down, and given his base price of 20 lakh this is a major purchase. Once he was promoted to open for Pune last season, Tripathi reeled off scores of 33, 31, 59, 45, 38, 37 and 93 to provide starts and with 290 runs off 184 balls, he was the most prolific batsman during the Powerplay overs after David Warner.
Shaw, 18, is currently the captain of India Under-19 in the junior World Cup in New Zealand, where the team has reached the semi-finals. In his first full season of Ranji Trophy cricket, Shaw scored 537 runs at 48.81, with three centuries, for Mumbai and was the U-19 team's third highest run-getter in the 5-0 one-day series sweep of England U-19s.
Given his form and IPL experience, Agarwal was a steal deal for KXIP at 1 crore. The punchy Karnataka batsman is coming off a bumper Ranji Trophy season, in which he top-scored with 1160 runs including five centuries, and recently made three fifties during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. This is his fourth IPL franchise after stints with Daredevils, RCB and Supergiants.
The highly rated Gill, with scores of 63, 90* and 86 for India Under-19 in the ongoing junior World Cup in New Zealand, and a first-class century to his name, entered the IPL player auction with a buzz around his name and duly found a taker in KKR. The Kolkata franchise then added Jharkhand batsman Ishank Jaggi for his base price of 20 lakh. Ricky Bhui went to Sunrisers Hyderabad for 20 lakh, while Himanshu Rana and Siddhesh Lad were unsold.