Durban: The huge sums being shelled out by the Indian Premier League franchises for the world's top players have stunned the cricket world, but South Africa's Jonty Rhodes believes they are worth every penny.
The Chennai team splashed out $1.5 million for Mahendra Singh Dhoni at a glitzy player auction on Wednesday while Hyderabad spent $1.35 million on Australian Andrew Symonds. Jacques Kallis was the most expensive South African player, attracting a $900,000 bid from Bangalore.
The team will pay the winning bid to the player annually. The contracts are for a three-year period and are guaranteed by the Indian cricket board. Rhodes, a former teammate of Kallis, said the South African all-rounder should not have gone for the bid price.
"No, I wouldn't pay $900,000 for him — I'd pay $1 million for him," Rhodes said on Thursday. "Cricketers are probably among the most underpaid of professional sportsmen, especially when you consider what tennis players and golfers earn. We're just not used to cricketers earning that amount of money. But when you consider the size of the Indian cricket market, a million dollars is a drop in the ocean."
Marketability
Rhodes said factors other than talent and experience had influenced the bids. "David Beckham was hauled across to the United States not for his soccer skills, but for his marketability," Rhodes said.
"It's not just about the quality of the player, but also how many shirts he is going to sell and how many bums he is going to put on seats."
Former South African Test batsman Graeme Pollock said the IPL would benefit the game as long as it did not detract from Test cricket.
"This is serving to commercialise cricket very quickly, but I think it's great as long as there's still a place for good old-fashioned test cricket," Pollock said.
"I suppose it shows you how much money there is in Indian cricket," he added. "But they seem to have got it right, that's why players like Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Andrew Symonds have gone for the big money."
South African captain Graeme Smith said he had been stunned by the amount of cash being spent. "It was pretty amazing seeing the sums of money, no one expected it to get to the proportions it did," Smith said in Dhaka, where South Africa are preparing for the first Test against Bangladesh on Friday.
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