NDTV

Sydney, Feb 21: Australian all rounder Andrew Symonds was left amazed by the price he fetched in the Indian Premier League (IPL) player auction.

Symonds went for $1.35 million to Hyderabad in the over-10-hour auction in Mumbai Wednesday, which was well above the price paid for any other Australian player. He is second only to India's one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni ($1.5 million).

By contrast, Australian captain Ricky Ponting went for $400,000. Brett Lee was the second most expensive Australian at $900,000 and Symonds said he could not work out why his price was so much higher than other Australian players.

Quite amused by the deal, Symonds said, "If I could tell you why that would probably be quite a good news story, but there is no sort of logical sense to what each player's worth... I can't see a pattern."

Incidentally, his captain Ricky Ponting went for much less, $400,000, to Kolkata, while Brett Lee, arguably the most popular Australian cricketer in India, managed $900,000 from the Mohali team.

Symonds admitted he had no clue as to what drove the bidders and could offer no explanation for the huge difference between his deal and that of Ponting.

"That's quiet amazing how that's unfolded. Unfortunately it's got nothing to do with me but that just the way things turned out," Symonds was quoted as saying by 'Herald Sun'.

He also refused to call himself a cricket mercenary.

Asked if he felt like a cricket mercenary, he said: "That's what they offered to pay for me, I didn't ask for it."