After Australia Captain Pat Cummins, and then pacer Mitchell Starc, broke the Indian Premier League auction record for top bid prices, Starc said the Australian team's WhatsApp group has been buzzing with their team-mates telling them that the dinner bill will be on them.
Australia's all-formats bowling star became the most expensive player in the history of the T20 league after attracting the exhorbitant bid from the Kolkata Knight Riders at the auction in Dubai on Tuesday, Dece,ber 19, 2023.
Starc was signed on by KKR for Rs 24.75 crore (Rs 247.5 million/$2.98 million), surpassing Cummins, who was briefly the most expensive player in IPL history at Rs 20.50 crore (Rs 205 million).
'Our Test squad WhatsApp group's been going off, letting us know that I think it's our shout for dinner and drinks. So it might be a costly little trip to Melbourne for us for the Boxing Day Test. But yeah, we've managed to find some luck tonight, and yeah, pretty, pretty special night for the both of us,' Starc said on JioCinema.
Starc tuned in to the auction at home in Sydney while resting ahead of the second Test against Pakistan in Melbourne.
Wife Alyssa Healy, the newly installed captain of the Australian women's team, watched from India ahead of the one-off Test in Mumbai.
'I'm not sure any words will do it justice, really,' Starc said of the auction result.
'A fair bit of shock and certainly excitement with how it was all unfolding, but nothing I could have ever imagined. It's a Christmas full of cricket as usual but it's certainly one with a nice little cherry on the cake.'
