3 times an Australian was the most expensive player in an IPL auction ft. Glenn Maxwell

Veteran Australian speedster Mitchell Starc brock several records on Tuesday in the IPL 2024 auction as he became the most expensive player in the history of the cash-rich league. After a mind-boggling bidding war between the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and the Gujarat Titans (GT), Starc was sold to KKR for an eye-watering ₹24.75 crore.

Just an hour prior to his bid, Starc's compatriot Pat Cummins was sold for a whopping ₹20.5 crore to the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). It speaks volumes about the impact that Australian players have had in the IPL over the years.

However, this wasn't the first time that an Aussie has taken the honors of being the most expensive player at a particular IPL auction. Let's take a look at the three other instances where an Australian player has topped the charts:

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#3 Pat Cummins - IPL 2020

Pat Cummins has been among the veteran Australian bowlers who have time and again pulled out of the IPL to manage their workload with Test cricket. He made himself available for the IPL 2020 auction and naturally garnered a lot of attention from franchises.

After a bidding war among franchises like the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and the Delhi Capitals (DC), it was KKR who bagged his services for ₹15.5 crore. While they didn't qualify for the playoffs, Cummins had a decent season picking 12 wickets from 14 matches and also scoring 146 runs.

He played two more seasons for the franchise, before pulling out of IPL 2023 and will now ply his trade for SRH next year.

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#2 Shane Watson - 2016

RCB added veteran Australian all-rounder Shane Watson for as much as ₹9.5 crore in their star-studded batting line-up which already consisted of the likes of Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, and AB de Villiers. It seemed like that was the season where Bangalore would finally break their trophy drought.

While Watson couldn't step up with the bat, scoring just 179 runs in 16 games, he picked up 20 wickets that season at an economy rate of 8.58. Despite that and Kohli's incredible 973-run season, RCB lost in the final to SRH.

Watson is infamously remembered for the hammering he received from Ben Cutting in the final, which arguably was the difference between the two sides at the end (SRH won the game by eight runs). He moved on to the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) later, winning the title in 2018, scoring a fabulous hundred in the final.

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#1 Glenn Maxwell - 2013

Glenn Maxwell was touted as the next big thing in Australian cricket 10 years ago and that naturally garnered attention from several IPL franchises. His explosive batting coupled with handy off-spin saw the Mumbai Indians (MI) resist competition from other teams and bag him for ₹6.3 crore.

However, given the overseas quota rule and the star quality that MI already had, Maxwell naturally didn't get enough game time, playing just three matches and scoring 36 runs. He did win the title with Mumbai that season and has gone on to make an impact for Kings XI Punjab and RCB since.