Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen today became the world's first million-pound cricketers when they were snapped up at the Indian Premier League auction in Goa.

The England team-mates could not be separated when the bidding began and both eventually went for a world record $1.55million (£1.05m).

In the first IPL auction a year ago Mahendra Singh Dhoni was bought for $1.5m by Chennai Super Kings but exchange rates at the time meant India's captain was valued at £770,000.

Come April, Dhoni will have Flintoff as a colleague after the southern India franchise won a bidding war with Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals to land the all-rounder.

For a few minutes, Flintoff was the world's only £1m cricketer. But then Pietersen was put up for auction and, despite another attempt by Rajasthan to land one of the game's superstars, Bangalore Royal Challengers bagged the man they most wanted.

“I was prepared to pay more,” said Bangalore owner Vijay Mallya. “I was very keen to get Kevin. Team balance was important and Kevin was certainly important in maintaining that.”

Today's auction means both Flintoff and Pietersen will earn approximately £500,000 for three weeks' work in April before returning to England to take part in the summer's First Test against West Indies. With all the deals being done for two years, however, it could be that the two biggest names in English cricket will press to play the full seven-week IPL season in 2010 and thereby earn their full wage of more than £1m.

Pietersen and Flintoff are not the only England cricketers waking to good news in the Caribbean this morning.

Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah will play for Delhi Daredevils in April after being bought for $275,000 (£186,000). But it was one-day player Ravi Bopara who profited from one of the auction's hottest bidding battles. The Essex all‑rounder's reserve price of $150,000 soared to $450,000 (£305,000) before Kings Punjab snapped him up.

Kings co-owner Priety Zinta said: “He is a great player and an all‑rounder and we wanted such a player. We think that he is the perfect player for our team.”

There were no bids, though, for either Sussex's Luke Wright, who last year rejected an approach to play in the IPL because he wanted to concentrate on his England career, or Notts' Samit Patel.

Their only chance of making the IPL this year is if the franchises pick them up as replacements for the Pakistani players, who have been barred from taking part.

All the England players will have to pay 10 per cent of their auction price to their counties for releasing them for the first part of the season.