This Season, it’s Player Auction at Calpine Cricket League

Another cricketing season has begun in Calpine and this time around in Calpine Cricket League or the CCL we had the player auctions, much like the Indian Premier League or the IPL. If players were sold for big bucks in the IPL, they were auctioned for points in CCL – another unique, innovative idea from Spartans, the sports and games group in Calpine. (Celebrity Cricket League commenced in the year 2011, whereas Calpine Cricket League started in 2009, so don’t we have a better right on the acronym CCL?)

This time around CCL has 3 teams, one from each work location in Calpine. Team management, consisting of a Team Manager and a Sub Manager, was selected from each location. It was the responsibility of the team management to adroitly select a team with the available points in hand. Each of the teams had 50,000 points in total, using which they had to select 14 players from the total of 42 players available for auction.

Based on the performance of the players in the previous editions of CCL, 15 players were given the status of ‘Icon players.’ Base rate of all players was set at 1,000 points, which meant that auction for every player started at 1,000. Maximum points that could be used for purchasing the 5 icon players was 41,000 points, which meant that each team would be left with 9,000 points to purchase the rest of the 9 players (as the base rate is 1,000) to make up a team of 14.

Fierce rounds of auction went on for the purchase of the players, particularly the icon players. Team managements came with lot of preparation and they were all aware of what they wanted for their respective teams. For certain top rated icon players there was severe competition in the auction and no team management was ready to lose them without putting a real fight.

The auction was open to all at Calpine and there was a huge participation from Calpiners to witness that battle within a battle. The audience cheered the teams, egged them on and applauded vociferously when a team acquired a player after an intense round of auctioning. After a relentless session of auction, each team management got a team that they believed is the best to win the CCL title for the year 2014.

The flawless setting of the auction rules, the smooth conduct of the proceedings and the elaborate preparations made for the performance of the auction, including the setting of the audio-visual aids, were all of the highest order, which drew appreciation for the Spartans from all quarters.

All eyes are now on the first match in the CCL, which would start on Wednesday, the 22nd of January, 2014. Let us hope that the matches will be played with the same level of severity of competition as was witnessed in the player auction and if that hope becomes true then we are in for a very special edition of Calpine Cricket League in 2014.

Let the battle begin!

Author: Aravind Ramesh