RUNsangram

The auction; where the game was redefined. The date was blah blahblah, the tension was palpable. On one side were the organizers of the event trying their hardest to make the right impression with the very first sports event at IIM Rohtak. On the other side, we had the tense faces of players and team owners who were keenly awaiting the auction.
Whether one would fetch a good price or be lost in anonymity was a question which weighed on every player’s mind. The intensity witnessed on the scene was one which would put the day zero of final placements of any IIM to shame.

Although the mood was tense to begin with, it was lightened when one of the organizers, Prashant Chourasia was bought in the first round itself, and for peanuts, in fact even less. A bid equal to the price of a mint meant that anyone who had held a bat or thrown a ball would get a more respectable bid. And that’swhat happened with the next bid. The only player in RUNsangram representing God’s own country and Prashant’s arch rival, Chirac Karn was auctioned for an unflattering (but still twice of Prashant’s bid amount) Rs.2.

The auction continued at a smooth pace and in a very jovial mood, with Roshan at the helm as the auctioneer, lending a dash of flair with his heavily accented punch lines. In the background were the profile images of all the owners, players and teams with their logos.

As the auction picked up momentum, the highest bid was for the talented all-rounder Vikalp Mathur. A bid of Rs.27 brought a wide smile to his face and to that of his proud team owners. Next in line to get a high bid was Shivank Sharma, a flamboyant batsman and a miserly bowler who was bought with a successful bid of 26. Closely following them was Ankush Garg with 21. Ankush is one of those players who can turn a game on its head with one powerful swing of his willow.

At the end of it all, Dheeraj, Kaustubh and Ana Agarwal put together a team that seemed like it could take the other teams out with ease. The team was packed with all-rounders Ankush Jain, Manish Verma and arguably two of the best players of the batch, Shardul and Arjun. With Shubham Shrivastava rounding up the team, The Invincibles indeed looked invincible in every sense of the word.

Lighter moments of the day involved two of the most popular students of the batch, Abhinav Singh Kakran and Ritesh Kumar. It’s still a huge mystery how Sourabh Modi and Arun Marik decided on the figure of 10 out of the allowed total of 50 for Kakran. Surprisingly, Kakran managed to get 10 while a big hitting all-rounder like Ankush Jain managed only 4. Arguably, the funniest moment of the day was when the Giants could have acquired the biggest player in the pool for 7 and saved a huge amount of 10. The day ended with Ritesh on his knees begging Namit to buy him for 17 instead of 7 providing some much needed laughter.

On the whole, the auction process showed that if this is how a cricket tournament was going to be organised in the very first year of IIM Rohtak, it would be interesting indeed to imagine how everything would be henceforth. It seems like IIM Rohtak is on a mission to redefine everything it touches, a Midas touch indeed.

IIM Rohtak