Shaking off months of controversy, litigation and uncertainty, cricket's biggest, richest and most brassy domestic event, the Indian Premier League, sprang to life again, breaking records and banks on the first day of auction weekend in Bangalore.

From the 88 players auctioned today, 15 new millionaires were created by the ten IPL franchises that will compete in season four, but there was another sorry bunch of 16 players who were left unsold when the auction finally ended at 6 pm.

Minutes after his name was the first to be randomly pulled out from a list of 'marquee players' at 11 am on Saturday morning, Gautam Gambhir earned the highest playing contract in cricket, $2.4m for two years with the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The Kolkata franchise then made its intentions clear by first winning allrounder Yusuf Pathan with the second highest bid for the day, $2.1m and spending another $1.1m on South Africa allrounder Jacques Kallis by lunchtime. As the only team to have three millionaires on their payroll, Kolkata spent more than half of its $9m salary cap on three players in the early phase of the auction.

The day was marked by big spends on Indian players, with seven of the 15 millonaires being home grown. The highest earning overseas player was Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene, who was signed on for $1.5m by Kochi, one of the two new franchises that will compete in the ten-team competition starting on April 8. The other new entrant, Pune Warriors, spent $2.1m on Robin Uthappa for its highest purchase, and would probably think of $1.8m on Yuvraj Singh as one of the bargain buys.

Most of the teams used the auction to completely overhaul their personnel in an attempt to avoid the mistakes of the previous three seasons. Going against that grain, Chennai Super Kings, the current IPL Champions as well as the Champions League T20 winners, retained as many as eight players from its successful campaigns. Four of those were retained before the auction, which cut their salary cap by half, but by the end of the day Chennai, which was perhaps the most infrequent bidder, had managed to both sign on key members of their old squad and stick to their restricted budget.

The IPL, which has broad-based and transformed cricket's entire economy, once again produced unexpected and unorthodox changes of course. Sets of established senior cricketers like Brian Lara and Sourav Ganguly and current performers Chris Gayle, Mark Boucher, Luke Wright, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, (the last three were members of the England World Twenty20 winning team) Matt Prior, Ajantha Mendis and Tamim Iqbal all went unsold.

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The first session of the third day was unadulterated entertainment. It contained hostile fast bowling, determination from Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir, innumerable plays, misses and edges, and only two wickets and 95 runs. With a little more fortune, South Africa could have picked up a handful of wickets in that enthralling session - they beat the bat and hit the edge so many times. They got only two. Gautam Gambhir's dismissal ended the overnight partnership at 176 and VVS Laxman's wicket was the result of a dropped catch and the little bit of fortune South Africa richly deserved. So though Sachin Tendulkar progressed towards his 51st Test century and India shaded the session, the hosts will enjoy their lunch a little bit more.

The first over from Steyn was an example of how to begin a day. There were no warm-up deliveries. His first ball angled into Tendulkar, landed on good length, reared up and seamed away late. Tendulkar prodded tentatively from his crease and was beaten. The second ball was fuller, swung away and took the edge as Tendulkar lunged forward. Mark Boucher caught it too, diving forward, but his appeal had little support from Steyn, and umpire Ian Gould said not out with conviction. The third ball fell short of gully, again off Tendulkar's edge, and he brought up his half-century, having resumed overnight on 49. The fourth beat the bat as well. For the fifth, Tendulkar stood out of his crease to counter the swing and drove to the extra-cover boundary. He defended the sixth, and had survived the best over of the Test.

For 53 minutes, the spectators at the Calvin Grove only got to see Tendulkar's batting from behind, while those at the Wynberg End had the same view of Gambhir. There were no singles during this period as Tendulkar faced all five overs of Steyn's first spell, while Gambhir negotiated Morkel. The runs came in twos and fours, a lot of them through edges, and 42 out of the first 50 balls were dots.

Steyn's spell was intense. He did not start at top speed because he was focusing to swing but he soon revved it up, sending down a volley of perfectly pitched outswingers. Tendulkar countered, making an initial movement forward and towards the off to adjust to the movement. He defended several confidently, but there were uncertain moments, like the time he tried to pull out of a shot but was too late, and the ball cannoned off the bat through the gap between second slip and gully.

Morkel began his spell by testing Gambhir's patience with a succession of short-of-a-length deliveries that bounced steeply outside off stump. Gambhir left the first eight and fended the first ball aimed at his body awkwardly for four down leg side. Only in the eighth over of the day did Gambhir's discipline in leaving deliveries outside off begin to waver. He mis-timed a drive to cover, pushed away from his body and edged through the cordon, and drove a half volley through the off side. Morkel then began to bowl fuller outside off, and Gambhir began to chase, and was beaten repeatedly.

Lonwabo Tsotsobe, who had induced three edges on the second day, replaced Steyn for the 61st over and continued the trend of beating the bat, seaming two deliveries past Tendulkar's bat from over the wicket. Tendulkar responded with a powerful pull to the midwicket boundary and a carve over gully. In Tsotsobe's next over, the 13th of the morning, Tendulkar flicked through midwicket for the day's first single.

With Jacques Kallis off the field because of a side strain, Paul Harris' left-arm spin gave India respite from the all-pace attack. Both Tendulkar and Gambhir played him with more intent, coming out of the crease to drive through the off side. The intensity of the test had decreased a notch with Steyn and Morkel refueling, but Tsotsobe produced enough deliveries from round the wicket that whizzed past Tendulkar's attempted drives, cuts and defensive strokes. In the middle of all the uncertainty against Tsotsobe, Tendulkar played one wonderfully assured straight drive. It was that sort of battle.

Gambhir also had moments of trouble against Tsotsobe, when one delivery jumped and hurt his elbow on the right hand. Soon Harris' deliveries were jumping at Gambhir, from a line wider than the one he bowled yesterday. One ball in the 72nd over leapt at Gambhir and kissed the glove but Boucher failed to take a tough chance. The next ball was straighter and took the edge, this time Boucher held it and Harris celebrated animatedly.

Harris could have had Tendulkar caught and bowled as well, had he been quick enough to hold on to a ball that was travelling at him at scary speed. Instead, he got Laxman as the ball hurt his fingers as it brushed them and broke the stumps at the non-striker's end. The nimblest batsmen might not have had a chance, but Laxman was merely lounging outside his crease.

Steyn returned for a second spell, with the second new ball, shortly before lunch and produced a replay of his first ball of the day, this time to Cheteshwar Pujara. India went into lunch trailing by 125 but they will have to do the hard work against Steyn and Morkel all over again.

South Africa's batsmen were tested severely by seam and swing on a stop-start day dominated by drizzle, murky light and a Table Mountain shrouded in cloud. By the time Newlands was bathed in glorious evening sunshine, though, the home team had lost only four wickets and had denied India the rewards that appeared imminent during the morning and afternoon. Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis, the most resolute of South Africans, manned the frontline and three consecutive half-century partnerships ensured the hosts edged ahead in the fight for the series.

The weather, the pitch and the Indian seamers examined South Africa's batting skills after MS Dhoni won his first toss in the New Year, having lost all but one of his previous 14. There were two rain interruptions and the natural light had to be supplemented by artificial ones, which required the batsmen's concentration to be at its peak. The pitch offered the bowlers assistance throughout, forcing the batsmen to be alert to the one that would suddenly jag back in, or seam sharply away. They edged plenty, but most flew into gaps in the field.

South Africa's innings had come to a standstill after they lost their openers - Graeme Smith shortly before the first rain interruption and Alviro Petersen soon after. It sparked to life during the period between the second rain break and tea, with Amla playing the protagonist.

Amla had batted with discipline, leaving majority of the deliveries outside off stump, especially when Zaheer Khan seamed them across him from over the wicket. Zaheer also went around the stumps and caused problems, beating Amla with a blockhole delivery outside off, inducing an inside edge past the stumps and a leading edge that lobbed dangerously towards cover - all in one over.

The pitch at Newlands wasn't as quick or bouncy as the one at Kingsmead, where batsmen could leave the ball on length. India's bowlers had not attempted a single bouncer when bad light and rain stopped play for a second time, with South Africa 61 for 2 after the 21st over. It was not that sort of pitch.

It was a pitch on which the bowlers needed to bowl fuller, and the Indians did. It was a pitch on which the batsmen needed to be made to drive, and the South Africans did. Kallis had driven Sreesanth with power through cover just before the rain, but Amla took charge after the second resumption.

He drove the first ball after the break from Zaheer through point, the next wide of mid-on, where Sachin Tendulkar dived over the ball, and another between midwicket and mid-on - all for boundaries. Sreesanth also urged Amla to drive by delivering swinging half-volleys outside off, two of which disappeared across the moist turf towards the cover boundary. In 4.1 overs after the second drizzle, South Africa had scored 30.

Sreesanth then tried a different line of attack, placing men at long leg and deep square and bouncing Amla, who hooked the first for six to reach 50 off 69 balls. Amla continued to attack, but not all his shots came off. He edged Sreesanth twice, first over gully and then wide of second slip. Zaheer also produced two crackers that pitched straight and seamed across the outside edge of Amla's forward pushes. On 59, Amla pulled Sreesanth again, but this time he spliced the short ball to Cheteshwar Pujara on the deep-square boundary. It was the only wicket that India took during the second session and it ended a partnership of 72.

Kallis had been quiet during Amla's burst but he assumed leadership of the resistance with AB de Villiers for company. Kallis had shouldered arms to his second delivery, from Ishant, and had been hit high on the thigh. He was later struck on the body while pulling, and he was batting with a wrist bruised during his dismissal at Kingsmead.

He faced a difficult over from Ishant right after tea, getting beaten by deliveries that straightened from a good length just outside off stump. He responded to that by flicking the bowler confidently through midwicket, growing his partnership with de Villiers, who had to tailor his free-scoring game to the conditions.

Harbhajan Singh was bowling economically, and the fast bowlers were always threatening to strike. Sreesanth did, inducing the edge from de Villiers with a perfect outswinger, snipping the stand at 58. Sreesanth also had an lbw shout against Kallis, on 54, but his appeal wasn't convincing even though replays indicated the ball would have hit the top of leg stump.

A noticeable aspect was the lack of aggression from India's bowlers today, compared to their performance in Durban, and they were slower in pace too. And once the sun came out, and the seamers tired, survival became relatively easier. Kallis was assured towards the end of the day, Prince was edgy at the start of his innings and they also added 68 runs to make Smith the happier captain at stumps.

George Binoy is an assistant editor at Cricinfo

Cape Town: Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni finally managed to win a toss as India decided to bowl first in the deciding Test against South Africa to be played here at the Newlands.

The good news for Team India is that Gautam Gambhir has returned to the playing eleven after missing the second Test at Durban due to injury. Gambhir will take the place of Murali Vijay.

India, the world`s top-ranked side, are keen to win their first series in South Africa although they will retain their place at the top of the rankings regardless of the outcome.

The visitors squared the series in Durban on Wednesday against the world number two side after losing the first Test by an innings.

Teams:

South Africa: Graeme Smith(c), Alviro Petersen, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Ashwell Prince, Mark Boucher(w), Dale Steyn, Paul Harris, Morne Morkel, Lonwabo Tsotsobe

India: Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Cheteshwar Pujara, MS Dhoni(w/c), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, S Sreesanth

Indian selector announced strong 16 member squad for South Africa ODI and twenty20 series in South Africa. The surprise inclusion in the squad is leg-spinner Piyush Chawla who last played in ODI for India in 2008.

Virendra Sehwag who missed the last one day series against New Zealand also included in the squad, while Sachin Tendulkar who has not played any series after his double century in ODI is also included in the squad. This is the last series for the Indians before they will play in the world cup so by considering this, it may be the final members who will take part in the mega event.

Middle order batsman Rohit Sharma who played in the ODI series against New Zealand also failed to retain his place. Ravidner Jadeja, Saurav Towary, Parthiv Patel and Ishant Sharma also not included in the squad.

Indian team comprises of six specialist batsmen, one wicketkeeper M.S.Dhoni, eight bowlers and only one all-rounder Yusuf Pathan.

India will start the short format of the game with only one twenty20 match to be played on 9th January 2011 followed by five match ODI series against South Africans.

Indian ODI Squad: MS Dhoni (Captain & WK), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, R Ashwin, Yusuf Pathan, Piyush Chawla, S Sreesanth.