'Mystery' English Seamer Earns A Cool Two Million As IPL Auctions Soar

This time last year, Englishman Tymal Mills was a Twenty20 gun-for-hire who had never played for his national team.

What a difference a year makes. Mills - a permanent pace bowling pick-up on the international Twenty20 franchise circuit - was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL player auction overnight; reaching US$1.8 (NZ$2.5) million.

Three other teams were trying to secure the 24-year-old's services, meaning the T20 speedster's value went up in a pretty epic bidding war.

Mills, who played for the Auckland Aces in the Georgie Pie Super Smash last season, has paid just four T20 international for England since making his debut against Sri Lanka on July 5 last year.

A clip of Tymal Mills in action, bowling out West Indies superstar Chris Gayle. Source: Youtube.

"I can't believe it," Mills, told The Mirror, from the Emirates where he is currently playing in the Pakistani Twenty20 league.

"I can't put into words what happened. I did not see this coming and it took a while for it to sink in. It has been a crazy day. I was up at 8.30am…when my turn came I was pretty nervous. I was the lowest of the base prices because I just wanted to get picked up.

"When my name came up I was nervous, giddy and jumpy. I was on facetime with my best mate and he just kept shouting. When I worked it out I could not believe it, it did not seem real. It's an amount of money that can change your life. It will for me."

The way the IPL auction works, Mills will pocket his auction fee as his contract. The little-known seamer - who has bowled in excess of 150km per hour - nearly had to end his career in 2014 due to a chronic back issue, making his contract even sweeter.

Mills was the second highest bid-for player in this year's auction, with Kiwi-born English all rounder Ben Stokes going for around NZ$3 million to Rising Pune Supergiants.

A strange Royal Challengers Bangalore introduction to Tymal Mills. Source: Youtube.

"It's a life changing amount of money," Stokes told the Guardian. "I was following on Twitter, I didn't actually see the auction live.

"I kept on refreshing. I saw people were tweeting and then I realised that Pune had got me. I wasn't sure how much a crore was. It was complete carnage."

Meanwhile, star Black Caps seamer Trent Boult became the second-most expensive Kiwi in IPL history yesterday when the Kolkata Knight Riders bought his services for NZ$1.04 million. Only former skipper Brendon McCullum has gone for more.

Kiwis Matt Henry, Martin Guptill and Lockie Ferguson also snapped up minimum-level contracts (just over NZ$100K a year) around the traps, while Black Caps all rounder Corey Anderson made double that at the Delhi Daredevils.