DTVHINDIEXCLUSIVE: “Was very aware of Dhoni’s importance in world cricket” – Richard Madley said while remembering the 2008 IPL auction.
Richard Madley. (Source – Getty Images/Wales Online) Richard Madley, who is known as the first person to host an Indian Premier League (IPL) auction, recently discussed many interesting things about his experience of being the auctioneer at the mega event. He hosted the inaugural IPL auction on February 20, 2008, and continued hosting the auction until the 2018 edition. Recently Madley was asked whether he had any prior knowledge about MS Dhoni before entering the auction. The star wicketkeeper-batsman was the most expensive player at the event as Chennai Super Kings (CSK) bought him for $1,500,000 (approximately Rs 6 crore) after the bidding started at $400,000 (approximately Rs 1.6 crore). Richard Madley gave a big statement regarding MS Dhoni Madley, in an exclusive chat with CricTracker, said that he was fully aware of Dhoni’s stature in the field of cricket as he was a cricket fan and the Indian captain’s unrealistic demand at the time of that auction did not surprise him. Richard Madley said, “I was very aware of Dhoni’s importance to Indian cricket, world cricket. I am a cricket fan, you know, I follow the game closely. So I knew he was potentially a player who was going to set things up. The first IPL auction, now, of course, it is random (auction set), you don’t know whose name will be the first to come out of that velvet bag that day. The former auctioneer said that, and I think Dhoni was thinking about the number five or six player. I think it was his fourth or fifth name that day and when his name came everyone went ‘aah’. And in those days, we used small cricket balls which were kept in a velvet bag. And on that came a player number, set number, which was his and there was a noise around the room you could tell there was excitement within the room.
