1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Earnings: $10 million
Primary Club Team: Chennai Super Kings
National Team: India
Major Sponsors: Reebok, GE Money, Pepsi
M.S. Dhoni's $8 million of endorsement income over the last year is more than baseball's Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard, combined.
2. Sachin Tendulkar
Earnings: $8 million
Primary Club Team: Mumbai Indians
National Team: India
Major Sponsors: Adidas, Canon, Royal Bank of Scotland
Tendulkar, widely considered one of the greatest batsman in cricket history, is one of five IPL cricketers with "icon" status, meaning he's exempt from the league's player auction and instead automatically receives a paycheck 15% larger than his highest paid Mumbai teammate.
3. Yuvraj Singh
Earnings: $5.5 million
Primary Club Team: Kings XI Punjab
National Team: India
Major Sponsors: Fiat, Reebok, Microsoft
Singh earned $4 million over the last 12 months from endorsements and other commercial ventures off the field, including providing a voice in the animated film Jumbo, his Bollywood debut.
4. Rahul Dravid
Earnings: $5 million
Primary Club Team: Royal Challengers Bangalore
National Team: India
Major Sponsors: Castrol, Reebok
A former International Cricket Council Player of the Year, Dravid earns slightly over $1 million annually from Bangalore as one of the IPL's five icon players.
5. Andrew Flintoff
Earnings: $4 million
Primary Club Team: Chennai Super Kings
National Team: England
Major Sponsors: Puma, Volkswagen, Barclays
Flintoff will retire from five-day national team competition next month and is doing his best to go out on top: In July he bowled England to its first Test victory in 75 years over Australia at Lord's, cricket's most storied venue.
6. Sourav Ganguly
Earnings: $3.5 million
Primary Club Team: Kolkata Knight Riders
National Team: India*
Major Sponsors: Puma, Pepsi
Ganguly, captain of the IPL's Knight Riders, ranks fourth all-time in runs on India's national team, a squad he used to also captain.
*Retired from national team play in 2008.
7. Ricky Ponting
Earnings: $3.5 million
Primary Club Team: Kolkata Knight Riders*
National Team: Australia
Major Sponsors: Valvoline, KFC, Adidas
Ponting has slowly shed his bad boy image to become one of Australia's most marketable athletes, earning more than $2 million in commercial endorsements over the last 12 months.
*Did not play in the IPL in 2009.
8. Brett Lee
Earnings: $3 million
Primary Club Team: Kings XI Punjab
National Team: Australia
Major Sponsors: Gatorade, Volkswagen
One of the fastest bowlers in cricket history, Lee was once clocked at 99.9 miles per hour on the radar gun, just shy of Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar's record of 100 mph.
9. Kevin Pietersen
Earnings: $3 million
Primary Club Team: Royal Challengers Bangalore
National Team: England
Major Sponsors: Red Bull, Vodafone, Adidas
Bangalore purchased the rights to Pietersen at auction for a record $1.55 million annual salary--a sum that's tied with Chennai's Flintoff as the highest auction price in the IPL's two year history.
10. Michael Clarke
Earnings: $2.5 million
Primary Club Team: New South Wales Blues*
National Team: Australia
Major Sponsors: Gillette, Slazenger
Clarke is the highest-profile cricketer who has yet to join the IPL, instead preferring to leave money on the table and play club matches in his native Australia.
*Australian first-class cricket team, also known as RTA SpeedBlitz Blues.
