IPL Auction: Chennai win fight for Moeen Ali; Chris Morris picked up for £1.6m by Rajasthan Royals

Moeen Ali was the subject of strong bidding before being sold to Chennai Super Kings for £700k in the 2021 IPL Auction while South African Chris Morris was picked up for a record-breaking £1.6m by Rajasthan Royals.

Off-spinning all-rounder Moeen, who was granted leave this week to exit England's on-going Test tour of India after playing one game, entered the auction with a base price of £200k but that quickly escalated as Punjab Kings and Chennai, in particular, showed interest.

The 33-year-old, who has previously played for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the tournament, will now team up with the retained Sam Curran at Chennai in time for the start of the competition in April after reporting for England duty in next month's T20 series against India.

• Chris Silverwood apologises over phrasing of Moeen Ali's exit

Ali's compatriot Dawid Malan, currently top of the ICC T20 batting rankings, will play IPL cricket for the first time after being sold to Punjab Kings for £150k. Surrey all-rounder Tom Curran, jettisoned by Rajasthan Royals at the start of the year, will now turn out for Delhi Capitals, who stumped up £500k plus almost £200k more for Sam Billings in the accelerated auction.

But openers Alex Hales and Jason Roy, together with leg-spinner Adil Rashid and seamer Reece Topley, were among the English players who went unsold.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Hales, the second player drawn by auctioneer Hugh Edmeades, attracted no bids at his reserve price of £150k and his fate was matched by Roy, who had a reserve of £200k.

Australian Steve Smith, jettisoned by Rajasthan Royals in January, was the first player picked as Delhi Capitals paid £220k but the auction truly took off with the sale of his compatriot Glenn Maxwell.

The all-rounder, whose base price was £200k, was the subject of fierce bidding before Royal Challengers Bangalore secured his services ahead of Chennai Super Kings for £1.4m (14.25 Crore).

• How 2020 IPL unfolded

That price was then trumped by South African all-rounder Chris Morris, who was picked up for an auction record of £1.6m (16.25 Crore) by Rajasthan Royals - the sum surpassing the previous highest of (16.00 Crore) paid for Yuvraj Singh in 2015.

The million-pound mark was broken for a third, then fourth time when Kings shelled out £1.4m for Australian seamer Jhye Richardson before Bangalore paid out their second six-figure sum to pick up Kiwi Kyle Jamieson for £1.5m.

Arjun Tendulkar - son of Indian legend Sachin - was bought for £20k by defending champions Mumbai Indians.

Eight English players, including white-ball captain Eoin Morgan, were already guaranteed a place in the IPL after being retained by their respective franchises.

Morgan, who led England to glory in the 50-over World Cup, remains with Kolkata while Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and Jos Buttler keep their spots with Rajasthan where they will be joined by Liam Livingstone, who was sold for almost £75k.

In January it was also confirmed Jonny Bairstow, who rejoined the Test squad in India on Wednesday, would stay with Sunrisers Hyderabad, with Chris Woakes (Delhi), Sam Curran (Chennai) and Chris Jordan (Punjab Kings) also able to watch the auction in comfort knowing their place in their respective squads was secure.

UPDATED SQUADS

Chennai Super Kings (English players in bold)

Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni, Narayan Jagadeesabn, Ruturaj Gaikwad, KM Asif, Josh Hazlewood, Karn Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Deepak Chahar, Faf du Plessis, Shardul Thakur, Mitchell Santner, Dwayne Bravo, Lungi Ngidi, Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Imran Tahir, Robin Uthappa, Moeen Ali, K Gowtham, Cheteshwar Pujara, M.Harisankar Reddy, K.Bhagath Varma, C Hari Nishaanth

Delhi Capitals

Shreyas Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Kagiso Rabada, Prithvi Shaw, R Ashwin, Rishabh Pant, Shikhar Dhawan, Lalit Yadav, Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Anrich Nortje, Chris Woakes, Steve Smith, Umesh Yadav, Ripal Patel, Lukman Hussain Meriwala, M Siddharth, Tom Curran, Sam Billings

Kolkata Knight Riders

Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan, Pat Cummins, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Ali Khan, Tim Seifert, Shakib al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Karun Nair, Harbhajan Singh, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer

Mumbai Indians

Rohit Sharma, Aditya Tare, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Jasprit Bumrah, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Quinton de Kock, Rahul Chahar, Suryakumar Yadav, Chris Lynn, Mohsin Khan, Saurabh Tiwary, Trent Boult, Adam Milne, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Piyush Chawla, James Neeshan, Yudhvir Charak, Marco Jansen, Arjun Tendulkar

Punjab Kings

KL Rahul (c), Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Nicholas Pooran, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Deepak Hooda, Prabhsimran Singh, Mohammed Shami, Chris Jordan, Darshan Nalkande, Ravi Bishnoi, Murugan Ashwin, Arshdeep Singh, Harpreet Brar, Ishan Porel, Dawid Malan, Jhye Richardson, Shahrukh Khan, Riley Meredith, Moises Henriques, Jalaj Saxena, Utkarsh Singh, Fabian Allen, Sumit Kumar

Rajasthan Royals

Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Kartik Tyagi, Andrew Tye, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Manan Vohra, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahim, Chetan Sakariya, K.C. Cariappa, Liam Livingstone, Kuldip Yadav, Akash Singh

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Devdutt Padikkal, Harshal Patel, Daniels Sams, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Adam Zampa, Shahbaz Ahmed, Josh Philippe, Kane Richardson, Pavan Deshpande, Glenn Maxwell, Sachin Baby, Rajat Patidar, Mohammed Azharuddeen, Kyle Jamieson, Dan Christian, Suyesh Prabhudessai, K.S. Bharat

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Kane Williamson, David Warner, Manish Pandey, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Abdul Samad, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Siddharth Kaul, T Natarajan, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mitchell Marsh, Vijay Shankar, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha, Shreevats Goswami, Basil Thampi, Jason Holder, Jagadeesha Suchith, Kedar Yadav, Mujeeb ur Rahman

Watch every match of the 2021 Indian Premier League live on Sky Sports Cricket.