IPL 2025 Mega Auction HIGHLIGHTS: Pant, Iyer makes history; Ashwin back to CSK

CHENNAI: In the opening day of the IPL 2025 Mega Auction Indian wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant pipped Shreyas Iyer to become the costliest buy in IPL's history with a Rs 27 crore winning bid from Lucknow Super Giants.

Shreyas Iyer was the first one to surpass Mitchell Starc as the IPL's most expensive buy with cash-heavy PBKS shelling out Rs 26.75 crore for their potential captain before Pant overtook Iyer by attracting Rs 25 lakh more from LSG.

Venkatesh Iyer who was also part of Iyer’s title winning side last time, got a whopping Rs 23.75 crore deal from KKR to bring him back via the Right to Match card after not retaining him.

Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal drew an impressive winning bid of Rs 18 crore from Punjab Kings while former LSG captain KL Rahul turned out to be a bargain buy for Delhi Capitals at Rs 14 crore.

Big news in terms of Chennai Super Kings was the return of Ravichandran Ashwin for Rs 9.75 cr back to the franchise where he started his journey. They also bought Tamil Nadu’s Vijay Shankar for Rs 1.20 cr. Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra were two good buy backs for CSK in the session, going for Rs 6.25 crore and Rs four crore respectively.

Australian opener David Warner had no takers in the opening day of the auction, same was the case for Indian Devdutt Padikkal. But they will go under the hammer once again in the accelerated round on Monday.