They purchased his services at the IPL auction around 10pm (NZ time), outbidding the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Delhi Daredevils. Anderson is not quite the overnight millionaire many were predicting, but the heavy-hitting 23-year-old will not be queuing up at the soup kitchen any time soon.
He made headlines when he whacked a world record 36-ball century against the West Indies in a one-dayer in Queenstown on January 1.
New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum can also look forward to a handsome pay day. He was sold to the Stephen Fleming-coached Chennai Super Kings for $NZ630,000.
Black Cap and Otago allrounder Jimmy Neesham was sold to the Daredevils for $NZ194,000.
They went unsold but were in good company, with Sri Lankans Tillakaratne Dilshan, Mahela Jayawardena and Angelo Mathews also missing out on the opening day of the auction in Bangalore.
Sri Lanka's May tour of England clearly put off the IPL teams.
Axed England batsman Kevin Pietersen was one of the early winners. He fetched a tidy sum of $1.74 million and will play for the Delhi Daredevils. Australian left-armer Mitchell Johnson went to Kings XI Punjab for $1.25 million.
Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh went for a staggering $2.7 million and wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik sold for $2.4 million to the Daredevils. Good work if you can get it.
Taylor's failure to attract any bids from any of the eight franchises came as a huge surprise. He has been in career-best form in the test arena, but perhaps he will be wondering whether shelving the slog sweep was such a good idea after all. Three years ago he was snapped up for more than a million dollars.
Taylor will get another opportunity to pick up a contract today when he can go back in the auction.
Otago's Jesse Ryder failed to attract any bids.
