Mumbai, February 20:

Franchise owners spent lavishly in a player auction today for the new Indian Premier League (IPL), with India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni topping the bidding on a day.

Bidding for the 77 available players reached about $40 million — pending late bids — and followed on from the $1.026 billion paid for the initial television rights and $723.6 million for franchise ownership.

Chennai trumped Mumbai in the race for India’s limited-overs captain Dhoni, who was given a three-year contract worth $1.5 million per season. Australian Andrew Symonds attracted the next highest price — $1.35 million from Hyderabad. Mumbai spent heavily to secure Sanath Jayasuriya ($975,000), while also landing India offspinner Harbhajan Singh.

Indian paceman Ishant Sharma fetched $950,000 from Kolkata while Irfan Pathan attracted a bid of $925,000 from Mohali. Jacques Kallis was sold for $900,000 to Bangalore. Mohali team won the bid of $900,000 for Brett Lee and Ricky Ponting went to Kolkata, which also has Sourav Ganguly in the team. The structure of the bidding saw players auctioned off in groups — marquee players, batsmen, bowlers, keepers, allrounders. Ponting will be paid some $250,000 less than Kolkata teammate David Hussey.

Shane Warne and Graeme Smith will team up for Jaipur. Adam Gilchrist (Hyderabad) and Muttiah Muralitharan (Chennai) were among the six marquee players. The others marquee players were Dhoni, Warne, Mahela Jayawardene (Mohali) and Shoaib Akhtar (Kolkata).

The IPL reserved four “icon” players from the auction — team captains Ganguly (Kolkata), Yuvraj Singh (Mohali), Sachin Tendulkar (Mumbai) and Rahul Dravid (Bangalore) — who were guaranteed 15 per cent more than the highest-paid player at their franchise. Virender Sehwag was added to the “icon” list on a request from the Delhi squad. The 15 per cent premium meant Tendulkar would fetch $1,121,250 per season.