KEVIN Pietersen has been bought by the Delhi Daredevils for £880 000 (90 million rupees) in the Indian Premier League auction in Bangalore.
The 33-year-old Surrey batsman, who had been expected to fetch a higher price, is available for the full tournament after being discarded by England.
Pietersen’s was the third highest price on the first day of auctions.India’s Yuvraj Singh was bought for a larger sum – £1.37M (140 million rupees) – by Royal Challengers Bangalore.
A total of 514 players will be up for sale for the seventh edition of the IPL.
Pietersen played last season for the Delhi side, but they initially chose not to retain him because of his expected international commitments.
Pietersen was the only current or former England international to sell on the first day of this two-day auction.
England players Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Jade Dernbach, Craig Kieswetter, Luke Wright, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Rikki Clarke and Simon Jones failed to sell. They will go under the hammer again tomorrow in Bangalore.
Each franchise has a spending cap of £5.87M (600 million rupees).
This year, players are being bought in Indian rupees instead of U.S. dollars for the first time.
Other players bought in the first round of auction yesterday included Australia’s Mitchell Johnson for £640 000 (65 million rupees) by Kings XI Punjab and David Warner for £540 000 (55 million rupees) by Sunrisers Hyderabad; South Africa’s Jacques Kallis for £540 000 by Kolkata Knight Riders; and India’s Virender Sehwag for £310 000 (32 million rupees) by Kings XI Punjab.
The current record paid for a single player was set in 2011, when Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir was signed for £1.47M, ($2.4M).
The IPL starts in April, but while the amount available for player salaries has trebled since the league began in 2008, profits of the teams have not kept pace
The tournament has also been affected by allegations of corruption with a top cricket official recently found guilty of illegally passing on information to bookmakers, the BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says.
The seventh edition of the 20-over tournament, which features eight teams, mixes floodlit cricket with Bollywood glitz and high-profile corporate sponsorship and runs from April 8 to May 30.
Any England players on central or incremental contracts who are selected for the home limited-overs series against Sri Lanka starting on May 20, must be back in the UK by May 13.
No such restrictions will apply to Pietersen after he was released from his central contract following England’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia.
The England and Wales Cricket Board said on Sunday that it had discarded Pietersen because it wanted an England team based on “trust” with all players “pulling in the same direction”.
Pietersen, who signed a new contract on Monday to play county cricket for Surrey, has played 21 IPL matches for either