WA’s Josh Inglis reveals he slept through IPL auction where bidding war for him ended at $1.5 million

Josh Inglis was the subject of a multi-million dollar acquisition in the Indian Premier League auction — but the WA star has revealed he was sound asleep when a bidding war for his services in the world’s best Twenty20 league broke out. Inglis was passed over when his name was first called in Abu Dhabi but re-surfaced during the accelerated round later in the event and became the subject of a tit-for-tat between Lucknow Super Giants and Sunrisers Hyderabad. The Super Giants — where WA legend Tom Moody was recently appointed in an overarching director of cricket role — eventually landed the winning bid for the white-ball star at approximately $1.5m. Inglis will only be available for four games of the tournament and his deal will be pro-rated accordingly, but he is still in line to collect about $375,000 for his time in India. With his name not coming up in the accelerated round until about 2am Adelaide time, Inglis — who managed 32 on the first day of the third Test of The Ashes — said he did not hear the news until he woke in the morning. “I didn’t expect to go, to be honest,” Inglis told the ABC. “I watched a lot of it and I was pushed back in the pecking order. “I don’t have full availability this year, I’m getting married (in) early April. I’ve had a few back issues as well, so I wanted to have some time to sort those out if needed. “Seeing my name go by the unsold first time, I said ‘stuff this, I’m going to bed, I need to switch on for tomorrow’, and then I woke up to the news. I didn’t know until I’d seen a few messages this morning.” Inglis scored 278 runs over 11 games for the Ricky Ponting-coached Punjab Kings in his first IPL season earlier this year but was released ahead of this year’s auction, reportedly due to concerns over his availability. This time around, he is set to play alongside superstar Indian wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant, who was the subject of a record-breaking bid of approximately $5 million from Super Giants in the 2024 auction. Just as he did in his first Test in Australia in Brisbane, Inglis was unable to kick on after making a start in Adelaide, which he said was “really frustrating”. “It’s a good wicket, so really disappointing,” he said. “That partnership with Kezza (Alex Carey), it felt like we really had it. We just needed to make that a bit longer and make the bowlers work a bit harder.”