IPL auction: Taylor, Jayawardene surprisingly left unsold!

Rediff.com takes a look the players surprisingly left unsold in Wednesday's Indian Premier League auction.

They will again go under the hammer on Thursday. Hope they have better luck then.

Ross Taylor is in terrific form of late. 

The second highest scorer in the recent One-day series against India, the New Zealander was also prolific in the preceding series against the West Indies. 

He had a base price of Rs 200,000. 

Surprisingly, no one went for him.

Mahela Jayawardene going unsold was another surprise.

The former Sri Lankan captain had led the defunct Kochi team and Delhi Daredevils previously in the cash-rich T20 extravaganza and performed commendably. 

He also previously played for Kings XI Punjab. 

Sadly, there was not a single bid for his base price of Rs 2 crore!

Perhaps, the record acquisition of Yuvraj Singh for Rs 14 crore had a price. 

Royal Challengers Bangalore didn't contemplate retaining their Sri Lankan Tillakaratne Dilshan, who opened for them last season. 

He had quit the Test team in a bid to prolong his career in the shortest format. 

No one showed any interest for his base price of Rs 2 crore.

David Hussey is a T20 player. 

He hadn't represented Australia in Test cricket, yet.

Though he performed admirably for Kings XI Punjab last season there were no takers for his base price of Rs 1 crore. 

Therefore, his omission came as a surprise.

Angelo Mathews, the captain of Pune Warriors last season, was also among those ignored.

However, this was more on expected lines. 

The Sri Lankan had struggled last season and failed to inspire his team. 

Like David Hussey he too had a base price of Rs 1 crore and went unsold.

Azhar Mahmood was one of the most consistent performers for Kings XI Punjab last season.

The Pakistani-born cricketer, who became is a British citizen in 2011 and is now a fully qualified English cricketer, has won T20 competitions, equivalent of the IPL, like Australia's Big Bash, Bangladesh Premier League, New Zealand's HRV T20 Cup and England's Friends Life T20, in four different countries.

There's no logical explanation as to why no one opted for him despite his base price being Rs 1 crore.

The auction also saw the likes of Nathan McCullum, Cameron White, Matthew Wade, Craig Kieswetter, Praveen Kumar, Ajantha Mendis, Murali Kartik and Robin Peterson remaining unsold.