Odishatv Bureau
Bangalore: The ten IPL franchises made their thought process clear that a legend like Brian Lara and successful former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly have passed their sell-by-date.

It might be a rude jolt for Ganguly who has prolonged his cricketing career only to play in the Indian Premier League not to find a single bidder among the 10 teams.

Although there is a chance that he may be picked by a franchise later after the first round of auctions are over but this has been the biggest snub for one of India`s greatest captains.

"The writing was clear once he doubled his base price from USD 200,000. May be he thought that he would have takers at that price. One needs to realise that guys like Dravid and Laxman are still playing international cricket whereas he has quit top flight cricket two years back," an official who was present at the auctions told PTI today.

West Indies batting great Brian Lara also did his reputation no good by jumping into the IPL bandwagon.

Lara, who retired about three years back, did not find a buyer with the franchises not willing to take the risk by investing on him.

The first day of auctions made one thing clear. The franchises are ready to pay for a youngster like Ravindra Jadeja ($950,000) rather than invest in Ganguly`s experience.

The franchises believe that even some one like David Jacobs with his acrobatic keeping and batting skills or a Piyush Chawla who hasn`t done much brings in more to the table than someone like Ganguly.

Chris Gayle was another player who remained unsold largely because Pakistan`s tour of West Indies clashes with the IPL.

However Kings XI Punjab going for Piyush Chawla at a whopping USD 900,000 rather than Graeme Swann who is considered as the best off-spinner in the world.

Some of the other notable players who went unsold during first round were Mark Boucher and Herschelle Gibbs of South Africa, Sri Lankans Dilhara Fernando and Ajantha Mendis, New Zealand`s Jesse Ryder and Englishmen James Anderson and Luke Wright.

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