Mallika Sagar, the bright auctioneer returns for her second IPL stint – this time at Jeddah, after last year in Dubai.
The Mumbaikar was approached by Hugh Edmeades in 2021 as stand-by as the auction was held amid quarantine during the Covid pandemic. “Hugh had approached me to be his back-up for the IPL 2021 auction. I am immensely thankful to him for this introduction into the world of Indian cricket,” Sagar had told Al Jazeera last year.
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Sagar is an art collector who started her career at Christie’s and held the first sale of Modern Indian Art in New York in 2001. The art history degree graduate from Philadelphia’s Bryn Mawr College, added to Al Jazeera that “sport auctioneering was a new world” for her, after art. “It did take a little bit of training, largely to change my approach,” she said.
In the same interview Sagar had recalled how as a teenager in college, she read a book with a female auctioneer as its protagonist. “And, perhaps, a bit frivolously, I thought: ‘That’s what I want to be,’” Sagar told Al Jazeera.
The Hindu Business Line quoted her as saying, “It was in my junior year in college that I saw a live auction for the first time, which is quite a fascinating and engaging experience.”
Talking to the same publication, Sagar had said that you needed to be a lot more sensitive when handling sports people or anything other than inanimate objects. “Be more prepared so you are aware of the context in which you are offering the players – such as pronunciation of their names, and other details because each player gets offered or showcased individually. So it’s up to me to make sure that they have the best possible chance. It’s a heightened sensitivity to compensate for the fact that you are moving from artworks or inanimate objects to players whose careers will depend on what will happen in the next few minutes,” she explained to BL.
Last year, the auction got tricky when Punjab Kings were embroiled in a case of mistaken identity with two players with the same name but from different cities up for auction. Sagar had enforced the rule strictly though, saying once the hammer had already gone down, rules had to be followed.
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