KEY POINTS:
PANAJI- England players Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff fetched US$1.55 million ($3.08 million) each at the Indian Premier League player auction Friday, setting a record for the highest amount paid for a player in the Twenty20 competition.
Flintoff was snapped up by Chennai Super Kings, which last year set the previous record of US$1.5m for Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Bangalore's Royal Challengers secured Pietersen.
Bangalore's owner Vijay Mallya said he was prepared to pay more for Pietersen.
"It was a very worthwhile investment," Mallya said after the first round of bidding.
"Team balance was important and Kevin was certainly important in maintaining that balance."
England players were not involved in the auction last year.
South African JP Duminy was sold for US$950,000 to Mumbai Indians, more than three times his reserve price.
Australian paceman Shaun Tait was the first player auctioned, going to defending champions Rajasthan Royals for US$375,000, where he will join former Australian teammate Shane Warne.
All contracts were for two seasons, rather than the three of last year.
The 2009 IPL season will be held from April 10 to May 29.
Teams were permitted to spend a maximum of US$2m on acquisitions this year, but that amount was adjusted downward for teams that had already signed some player contracts ahead of the auction.
This year's auction is different from that in 2008, when teams went out to pick their entire squad.
Now, they only have to top it up with a few players or fill in vacancies caused by non-availability of some cricketers.
There were 50 players up at the auction, but teams had only 17 slots to fill this year.
The IPL governing body has permitted franchisees to terminate the contracts of the players from Pakistan bought at last year's auction after Pakistan's government prevented its cricketers playing in this year's event owing to political tension between the south Asian archrivals.
Players are allowed to miss IPL matches only due to injury or if they have to represent their national teams in tests or limited overs internationals.
- AP