Human auctions have come a long way, thank heaven, from the days when slaves were sold by the pound to cut sugar cane and pick cotton. Today's human auction lots are bought for their rare skill in cutting a cricket ball past all the slip fielders to the boundary, and for picking the bowler who can get the best out of the wicket.

Yesterday some of the world's most prized cricketers went under the hammer in Bombay, to be bid for by teams competing in the country's new Indian Premier League. It wasn't a saleroom for the stingy. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the 26-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman who captains India's limited-overs side, drew the highest price for his services: $1.5 million. Did we mention that this is his wage for just six weeks' work playing in the IPL's new Twenty20 competition? Shane Warne was knocked down for a bargain $450,000, though his compatriot Glenn McGrath failed to meet his reserve in the first round of bidding, maybe leaving the fast bowler feeling like the schoolboy who gets chosen last by the two rival team captains in the games lesson.

Today's auctions are evidently reserved for humans of such rare flair that only the most ruthless marketplace can be trusted to pin the right price on their heads. If it's good enough for cricket, why not for others, too? Could we have landed a sturdier Chancellor of the Exchequer had we opened our wallet and bid for one at open auction? Is Michael Martin the best Speaker we can afford? But maybe politics mastered the art of the saleroom earlier even than cricket-mad India. Didn't Mencken say that “every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods”?