Starc, Warner, Smith up for grabs in IPL mega-auction

Mitchell Starc, the most expensive IPL cricketer of all, will join a total of 37 Australian stars all hoping to hit the jackpot at the Indian Premier League's latest 'mega-auction' in Saudi Arabia ahead of the 2025 season.

The list features a host of the biggest names in the Australian game, including veteran batters David Warner and Steve Smith, who are hoping to be snapped up from among the top bracket of players whose asking price will start at 2 crore ($367,000).

Other domestic white-ball players in that expensive bracket include Starc, Australia captain Mitch Marsh, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood, Glenn Maxwell and young prodigy Jake Fraser-McGurk, one of the IPL's sensations last year.

Heading the Aussies, among the elite dozen players the IPL has decided should be first to go under the hammer at the auction that takes place in Jeddah on November 24/25, will be Starc, who was snapped up for a record $4.43 million by Kolkata Knight Riders at the last auction last December.

Despite the price tag, the 34-year-old quick didn't have the greatest campaign - although he did come good at the business end as KKR went on to become champions - and was let go before the franchise's retention deadline.

But Starc is still up there with the IPL's elite names for the auction, headed by No.1 on the list, England captain Jos Buttler.

Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul, the three home-based captains also released by their franchises, are among the star dozen too.

The overseas names in the dynamic 12 are Buttler, England allrounder Liam Livingstone, South Africa power-hitter David Miller and his Proteas' colleague, fast bowler Kagiso Rabada.

Of the 574 players at the auction, 366 are Indian with only 70 places earmarked for the 208 overseas hopefuls.

Notably, James Anderson has made the shortlist at the grand old age of 42 now that his Test career is done, but his England pace colleague Jofra Archer is not included.

At the other end of the age scale, 13-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the Indian left-hander who hammered a century against Australia's U19s in October, has also made the cut.

AUSTRALIANS GOING UNDER THE HAMMER AT THE IPL AUCTION:

Base price $367,000 - Mitchell Starc, Jake Fraser-McGurk, David Warner, Mitch Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Tim David, Steve Smith, Sean Abbott, Adam Zampa

$275,000 - Jason Behrendorff, Jhye Richardson, Daniel Sams, Riley Meredith

$229,000 - Aaron Hardie, Nathan Ellis, Lance Morris, Ashton Agar

$183,000 - Alex Carey, Ashton Turner, Chris Green

$137,000 - Josh Philippe, Ben McDermott, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Xavier Bartlett, Cooper Connolly, Will Sutherland, Ben Dwarshuis, Hilton Cartwright, Michael Neser, Andrew Tye

$55,000 - Joshua Brown, Oliver Davies