IPL auction 2018: Gambhir, Ashwin part of marquee set

Gautam Gambhir, who was not retained by the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR), is part of the two sets of marquee players, along with Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuvraj Singh and others, for the IPL auction, which begins on January 27 in Bangalore.

In the names announced by IPL on Saturday, 578 players have been kept in the final auction list out of the 1,122 players that signed up for the 11th edition of the league.

The other shortlisted marquee players out of a total of 16 includes Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Harbhajan Singh and overseas players like Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Christopher Gayle, Mitchell Starc, Glenn Maxwell, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Shakib Hasan - each priced at Rs 2 crore.

With Rs 2 crore as the highest reserve price, 36 players, including 13 Indians, have opted for the top bracket.

A total of 62 capped Indians and 298 uncapped Indian cricketers will vie for the available slots with 182 capped overseas cricketers, 34 uncapped overseas players and 2 cricketers from Associate Nations.

Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Yuzvendra Chahal and Karn Sharma have also set their base price at Rupees 2 crore.