"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights," Muhammad Ali once said. And so it was in the IPL: in many ways the league was not won or lost on the field of play but in the air-conditioned function rooms of glitzy hotels that staged the annual player auction. The divergent fortunes of Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore started at the first auction in 2008. Unbeknown at the time were how the rules on player retention would evolve, which allowed teams to maintain a core squad across a number of seasons. This placed a disproportionate influence on the first auctions, in which franchises formed the nucleus of their team. Franchises who misjudged their strategy in early auctions were left scrabbling around for the remaining quality players. "When they got into the IPL, Chennai probably had an advantage over a lot of other franchises because their ow