Million for Maxwell | The auction, live | Who went where

They came with deep pockets and did not hesitate in digging into them. The result — all Indian Premier League ( IPL) team owners went back pleased with the bunch of new players who could bolster their chances of success.

Mumbai Indians owner Nita Ambani, whose franchise bought Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell for $ 1 million (Rs 5.3 cr), said they were happy to have the youngster.

"He is an upcoming youngster who can bat, can spin the ball well and is a good fielder. Mumbai wanted a young allrounder. We had thought about a few names and he is one of them,” she said.

Anil Kumble, mentor of the Mumbai Indians, was also excited to have Maxwell in the team.

"For an emerging player, it is big. He is an exciting player and a good catch for us. I knew him before he made his debut for Australia.

He will be with the Australian team in India for the Test series. We are looking forward to working with him,” Kumble said.

Shilpa Shetty, co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals, said their strategy was to make sure they invested in the right kind of players and not just the big names.

"We made sure we invested in the right players to fill in the gaps. We’re very happy with the auction. The problem we found last year was we lacked in the bowling attack. So we set out to fix that.” .

Rahul Dravid, who is the Royals’ captain-cum-mentor, said: "We’re happy, a couple of things we wanted to address from the last season... our death bowling was disappointing. I thought taking James] Faulkner and [Fidel] Edwards would help us address issue.”

Preity Zinta, co-owner of the Kings XI Punjab, which bought Manpreet Gony and Aussie Luke Pomersbach, said: "It [auction] been a little slow but it’s been good for us. Pomersbach is an old Kings XI boy and he’s back in the lion’s den. Gony is from Punjab hasn’t played for us. He’ll be good on our [seaming] tracks and are looking to have a good season with him. Hopefully, we will do much better this year.”

Venky Mysore, Kolkata Knight Riders’ chief executive, said the purchase of Sri Lankan spinner Sachithra Senanayake will add a new dimension to their attack.

Sunil Narine is available, almost all of our players are.

But the success we had with him and our conditions, we thought we could intensify that kind of attack. We are happy to buy Senanayake, who add a new dimension our set-up. And Ryan McLaren as well, who will add to our pace back-up,” he said.

New outfit Sunrisers Hyderabad’s co-mentor, Kris Srikkanth, said the team has good balance. On picking Sri Lankan all-rounder Thisara Perera, Srikkanth said: "He was a good buy. Coach Tom Moody knows the capabilities of Thisara. He adds strength to our plan for successes in the coming season.”