10 most expensive players in the history of IPL
When the first ever IPL auction took place, former Indian skipper MS Dhoni was sold to Chennai Super Kings for USD 15 lakhs and became the most expensive player in IPL. A year later, English internationals Kevin Pietersen and Freddie Flintoff were paid more than Dhoni as Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings bought them for USD 15.5 lakhs respectively.
Few years down the line, the IPL Governing Council (GC) changed the unit of money from USD to INR. The likes of Gautam Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh etc. fetched a huge sum in the auction while the players retained ahead of 2014 IPL received almost equal pay cheques as well.
When Royal Challengers Bangalore spent 14 crores for Yuvraj Singh ahead of 2014 IPL, it was the most expensive buy in the history of IPL before the southpaw was released a year later and Delhi Daredevils signed him for 16 crores, overtaking RCB's 14 crores to become the costliest IPL buy.
In the 2017 IPL auction, England all-rounder Ben Stokes was sold for INR 14.5 Crores and became the second costliest player in IPL history. While everyone thought that the sum won't be breached in the upcoming editions, the 2018 IPL retention saw the players receive a massive pay cheque as the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Rishabh Pant were retained for a price that was more than Stokes's fee last year.
While Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils retained MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant for 15 crores each, RCB paid a whopping 17 crores to Indian skipper and unarguably the best batsman across all three formats, Virat Kohli.
With this, the recently married RCB skipper became the costliest player in the history of IPL and it is highly likely that he will still remain at the top even after the 2018 IPL auction that is scheduled to take place on January 27 and 28. Some other player might pip him for the top spot in the future but as of now, Kohli remains the undisputed King in the IPL.
