It's kicked-off - reviewing the rest briefly

GT and LSG use IPL experiences of Ashish Nehra and Gautam Gambhir; MI have an indifferent auction. 

LSG already had KL Haul, Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi in the dugout and made some interesting and worthy picks in Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, Jason Holder, Krunal Pandya, Mark Wood, Deepak Hooda and Avesh Khan. That they spent the maximum purse of Avesh provided an insight into their thought process while picking QDK, Wood and Holder strengthened their overseas squad. Gambhir's excellent analytical skills seemed to have come good at the table.

GT had picked Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan (that is one hell of a pick in my view) and Shubman Gill to begin with - there are questions about Pandya but on his day he could wreck havoc. At the auction, with Nehra by their side, they went about accumulating the squad in methodical manner - just like how Nehra methodically planned India's victory over England in that league game at the 2003 World Cup. Mohammad Shami, Lockie Ferguson and Rahul Tewatia hit jackpot while a late Mathew Wade pick took care of the openers slot. David Miller, Alzarri Joseph, Vijay Shankar and Wriddhiman Saha were decent picks while Tamil Nadu spinner Sai Kishore was a surprise pick. He should do a fantastic job to complement Rashid Khan - something Rashid missed during his time at SRH.

MI had the toughest choices to make. In order to retain the top guys in Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Kieran Pollard, they had to let a lot of superstars go into the auction pool. And the fact that they invested over 15cr for Ishan Kishan alone only aggravated their position. So much so that the only other player that they could retain from the previous lot was Arjun Tendulkar. Their other picks at the auction did not elicit any excitement at all to be honest although Dewald Brevis who is dubbed the new ABD could be an eye catcher. Despite being unavailable for this season Jofra Archer made it to the team on a heavy budget as did Tim David brought in a new nationality into the IPL arena - Singapore. In summary - MI had an ordinary and indifferent auction. Let's hope the squad is able to prove that wrong.

Probable XI (LSG): Rahul (c), De Kock (wk), Pandey, Stoinis, Hooda/Vohra, Pandya, Holder/Chameera, Wood/Lewis, Bishnoi/Karn, Avesh, Rajpoot/Gowtham

Probable XI (GT): Wade (wk), Gill, Pandya(c), Saha/Tewatia, Shankar, Miller/Joseph/Drakes,  Ferguson, Yadav/Kishore, Rashid, Shami, Sangwan/Aaron

Probable XI (MI): Kishan (wk), Rohit(c), SKY, Brevis/David, Pollard, Meredith/Allen, Archer*/Mills/Sams, Ashwin, Bumrah, Unadkat, Markande

* - will missi IPL 2022