In a high-profile auction, where Bollywood stars and corporate bigwigs were locked in a bidding war, Kolkata Knight Riders bought Gambhir for the mind-boggling sum, beating the previous high set by the English duo of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff (USD 1.55 million) last season.
Shah Rukh Khan was not present in person but his Kolkata Knight Riders, which had been reduced to an also-ran in the
last two seasons, proved to be the big spender of the day by also buying hard-hitting all-rounders Yusuf Pathan (Rs 9.66 crore) and Jacques Kallis (Rs 5.06 crore) for the fourth edition of event to be held from April 8 to May 20.Gambhir, who was captain of the Delhi Daredevils last season, saw his price skyrocket 12 times from his base price of USD 200,000 (Rs 92 lakh) while three other Indian players -- Yusuf (USD 2.1 million), Rohit Sharma (USD 2 million) and Robin Uthappa (2.1 million) crossed the two million mark.
Yusuf's younger brother Irfan, who has not played any cricket this season, was taken by Delhi Daredevils for a surprisingly high amount of USD 1.9 (Rs 8.74 crore) million.
But there were some surprise names in the unsold list with former India and KKR captain Sourav Ganguly, West Indies batting star Chris Gayle and the legendary Brian Lara failing to find a buyer.
