INTERVIEW
Follow UsIn 2019, Hugh Edmeades replaced Richard Madley as the auctioneer for the Indian Premier League. In over a decade, Madley made the rostrum his own, making it difficult for the viewers to imagine someone else ‘selling’ the players.
But in the last three years, Edmeades has done the job exceptionally well and is now all set for his fourth-consecutive IPL auctions in Bangalore in February.
Cricket.com caught up with the English auctioneer for a chat ahead of IPL 2022 auctions.
How and when did your career as an auctioneer start? Were you keen on becoming an auctioneer during your childhood?
As a child, I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. I joined Christie’s in 1978 primarily to handle and to learn more about antique furniture, but with absolutely no desire to be an actual auctioneer. The start of my auctioneering career happened when my boss at Christie’s suddenly left the company. I was offered his job as Head of the Furniture department, on the condition that I became the auctioneer.
I was happy to run the department, but the thought of having to stand up in front of people as the auctioneer filled me with dread and I tried to make all sorts of excuses to get out of it. After a nightmare crash course lasting a couple of months, I took to the rostrum in 1984 and to my immense surprise immediately loved the job. Life is very strange at times - I am always telling my children that if you are given the opportunity to do something, no matter how much you think you might hate it, grab the opportunity, because you never know until you’ve tried it!
Tell us about some of the biggest assignments of your life as an auctioneer
At Christie’s, I was lucky enough to sell all sorts of individual categories of art in various parts of the world, but it was probably the single owner sales that were the most memorable, including the collections from H.R.H. Princess Margaret, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Dame Margot Fonteyn and Margaret Thatcher, to name a few.
The sale in New York of a part of Eric Clapton’s Guitar Collection was great fun as was the M.C.C. Bicentenary auction which took place at Lord’s Cricket Ground which took me and eight colleagues ten hours to auction. On the charity auction front, being asked to be the auctioneer at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday dinner in London will take some beating, with the eight lots realising over £4,200,000.
What have you found the most endearing about the people you see bidding at the IPL?
Well, as you may well know, each franchise has to nominate one bidder, so I only have to concentrate on eight people (ten this year) at any one time. I am looking forward to welcoming the Lucknow and Ahmedabad bidders in Bengaluru. My life is made a lot easier by the fact that the bidders know exactly what they are doing and make their bids very clear to me.
IPL auctions last very long. Must be both physically and mentally tiring to be auctioning for six to seven hours at a stretch? Anything special that you've ever done to maintain your energy levels?
Having now been an auctioneer for 38 years, I have learnt how to calibrate both my mind and body and to adjust to the potential length of auctions. That said, I haven’t taken many auctions that last as long as the IPL ones. It is amazing how the adrenaline kicks in and sees me through to the end. With the 2022 auction being a two-day affair, no doubt I will have a good sleep on my flight back to London on the 14th February.
Tell us about the challenge of changing currencies. How did you train yourself to sell in Indian currency? Any goof-ups so far?
Don’t tell anyone, but I place a Post-It sticker on the rostrum with the name of the currency on it, just to remind me. With the additional challenge of Indian currency changing from rupees to lakh to crore, I keep it simple and just stick to lakh. I must admit that once or twice I have mentioned “pounds”. My main goof-up was once when I was back in London having spent the previous week selling over 1,500 lots in Hong Kong. I thought I had better put a “£” sign on my post-it, to remind me I was no longer selling in HK$s, when I suddenly heard myself saying “selling for 5,000 Euro”. The really strange thing about that was that, at that stage, I had never taken an auction selling in Euros.
Any other goof-ups that you can recall? Something that went unnoticed by the viewers?
None that I can recall. The nearest I got to a “big one” was when there were two auctions at Christie’s starting at the same time. I had merrily climbed into the rostrum and was about to welcome the bidders to the Furniture sale, when one of the clerks rushed into the saleroom and pointed out that I had erroneously picked up the Painting auctioneer’s book.
Tell us any funny incidents from the IPL auctions that you can recall
Up to now, I can’t think of any funny IPL related incidents. However, one not so funny incident happened last year, when my direct flight from London to Chennai was suddenly cancelled. I had to fly to Bengaluru instead where I joined the English cricket replacement team’s coach for the eight-hour journey to Chennai. Equally unamusing was having to quarantine alone in my hotel room for a week. You can imagine how much I am looking forward to my quarantine week this year.
This will be your fourth consecutive IPL auction. Tell us about some of the most intense moments you have witnessed at the auctions over the last three years
At the majority of my auctions, I usually have a “ball-park” idea of how much the lots are going to sell for. One of the fascinating things about IPL auctions is that I have no idea which players are going to be bid for and for how much. The first three players I auctioned at my first auction back in 2019 were Alex Hales, Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum – it was a tense moment when I received not one bid for any of them.
At the other extreme, at the same sale, it was pretty tense when I started the bidding for Varun Chakravathy at Rs 20 lakh and finally ‘sold’ him for Rs 840 lakh. Even more tense was at last year’s auction when I started the bidding for Chris Morris at Rs 75 lakh and, after what seemed like a life-time, I finally brought my hammer down at Rs 1,625 lakh – the highest price ever achieved at an IPL auction.
Tell us something that is unique to the IPL auctions. Something that you haven’t experienced at any other auctions
Like I said earlier, at the majority of my auctions, I usually have a “ball-park” idea of how much the lots are going to sell for. At the IPL auctions I have no idea which players are going to be bid for and for how much. In addition, the unique thing to IPL auctions is that I know exactly who the 8 (this year 10) bidders are. In my other auctions, we have clients bidding, not only in the saleroom, but also on the telephone and online, and they can also ask me to execute bids on their behalf.
You've travelled to Jaipur, Kolkata and Chennai. Might have not explored Chennai much due to Covid19 but how was the Jaipur and Kolkata experience? What did you like the most about these cities?
In Jaipur, the auction was held in a massive new hotel away from the city, so I had no chance to do any sight-seeing. Fortunately I had visited this amazing city with my wife some years before – we just loved the food, the history and the people. In Kolkata, I arrived two days before the auction and literally had to dash straight to the airport immediately after the auction to fly to Zurich to take a charity auction in St Moritz the following evening – so again no sightseeing. As you said, Covid 19 put paid to any sight-seeing in Chennai and I fear the same will be true of my visit to Bengaluru this year.
Was there any strain in your relationship with Richard Madley after you replaced him as the IPL auctioneer?
None at all. I knew and worked with Richard at Christie’s. I can imagine his disappointment when he was no longer asked to be the IPL auctioneer, but before the Jaipur auction, he had the good grace to wish me luck with it.
Do you watch the IPL games?
One of the advantages of being self-employed allows me to watch most of the games – so yes I do!
You can find, and in turn contact, Hugh Edmeades at https://www.hughedmeades.com/
