Virender Sehwag's Sons, Virat Kohli's Nephew Among Players Bought At DPL Auction
The Delhi Premier League auction this year was more than a market for talent. It had famous surnames and strong performances.
The Delhi Premier League auction this year was more than a market for talent. It had famous surnames and strong performances. There was an intense bidding war for some of the players, for whom franchises used the Right to Match to retain them. The auction was held earlier today at a five-star hotel in the capital, and it set the ball rolling for the third season of the Delhi Premier League, which has fast become a breeding ground for IPL stars. The dates for the season are yet to be announced.
The last player to go under the hammer was Vedant Sehwag.
Picked by Central Delhi Kings for Rs 1 lakh, Vedant is the younger son of Virender Sehwag. He is 16 now and still very early in his cricket journey, but he has already been around the system long enough to be noticed.
Last season, the West Delhi Lions signed him as one of the youngest players in the league. This year, he entered the auction pool again and found a new team.
Unlike his father, Vedant is not a dasher at the top. His game is built around off-spin. He is a right-handed batting all-rounder, but bowling is where he has made early impressions. In his debut year in 2024, for Delhi Under-16s in the Vijay Merchant Trophy, he picked up four wickets against Punjab.
His elder brother Aaryavir Sehwag was one of the bigger stories at the auction last year. Central Delhi Kings bought him for Rs 8 lakh after a serious bidding fight. He got one game, showed intent, and was back in the pool this year. West Delhi Lions picked him up for Rs 3 lakh.
Virat Kohli's 16-year-old nephew Aaryaveer Kohli went to Central Delhi Kings. He had played for South Delhi Superstarz last year.
And then there was Sarthak Ranjan.
For many people, he was first known as the son of Bihar politician Pappu Yadav. Not anymore.
North Delhi Strikers used their Right to Match card to bring him back, conveying the fact that they rate him highly as a cricketer. They picked him for Rs 17 lakhs today.
He scored 252 runs in 10 innings in the first season. In the second season, he scored 449 runs in just nine games. One hundred. Four fifties. That second season was a game-changer for him as it got the attention of Kolkata Knight Riders scouts, and he was picked up for Rs 30 lakh ahead of IPL season 19.
After the IPL bid had come through last year, his father, a veteran politician from Bihar and an MP multiple times, posted on X saying, "Ab Sarthak ke naam se banegi humari pehchaan."
The top buy of the day was Tejaswi Dahiya. South Delhi Superstarz splurged Rs 40 lakhs on him.
He became the highest-paid player at this year's auction.
Dahiya has neither a cricket surname nor a political legacy, just a hard-working Delhi cricketer.
Tejaswi is the son of math and economics teachers from Delhi. He went unsold in the IPL 2025 auction. A year later, after a strong DPL season, things changed swiftly for him.
339 runs. Strike rate close to 200. One of the cleanest hitters in the tournament.
That was enough for Kolkata Knight Riders to spend Rs 3 crore on him at the IPL 2026 auction.
And now DPL has made him its most expensive player too.
A purse of Rs 1.5 crore was given to each of the eight DPL teams to build their squads for the third season.
Virender Sehwag