The IPL 2025 mega auction will be held on November 24 and 25 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is the second successive year that it is being held overseas, having taken place in Dubai last year, and it will clash with the third and fourth days of the first Test between India and Australia in Perth.
Unlike the normal auctions, the mega auction held every three years is conducted over two days instead of one, and it is one of the most-watched events in cricket, as the ten IPL franchises build their squads for the next three years (2025-27).
By the November 4 deadline, as many as 1574 players (1165 Indian and 409 overseas) had registered for the auction, said the BCCI. They range from countries like Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Scotland, USA and UAE, apart from the Full Member nations excluding Pakistan. Each franchise will form a squad of 25 players, which is therefore 204 slots available for an auction after the retention process.
On the last day on which teams were supposed to decide which of their 2024 squad players they will retain, ten franchises retained 46 on October 31. Sunrisers Hyderabad wicket-keeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen was the most expensive retention, while Virat Kohli of Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Nicholas Pooran of Lucknow Super Giants led the list together for INR 21 crore. However, the brightest spot of retention day is that Mumbai Indians retained all their big Indian players like Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, and Tilak Varma for a total INR 75 crore.
Each team has a purse of INR 120 crore with which to build their teams, but after the retention Punjab Kings retain the largest remaining purse with which to do that - INR 110.5 crore - retained only two uncapped players: Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh, for the sum of INR 9.5 crore in total. The Rajasthan Royals have the smallest purse of INR 41 crore after they, along with Kolkata Knight Riders, retained the maximum of six players. KKR will have INR 51 crore to spend at the auction.
This time, teams have been allowed to retain up to six players - of which a maximum of five can be capped and a maximum of two can be uncapped. The six players can either be retained outright ahead of the auction, or can be bought back using Right-to-Match (RTM) options at the auction, or a combination of both.
If a player has been bought by another franchise during the mega auction, the previous franchise where he played in IPL 2024 can come and claim the player at the end of the auction and can acquire the player at his expense by using the RTM option by just matching the highest bid. And then that franchise will have an opportunity to again increase the bid, which the team can do up to any amount they like, and at that point, the old team must match that increase if they want to buy that player back.
PBKS retained just two players and have the most RTM options with four at the auction. RCB, having retained three players, has three; Delhi Capitals, with four players retained, has two. Five teams have retained five players each and have only one RTM option in the auction - MI, Chennai Super Kings, Gujarat Titans, SRH, and LSG - while RR and KKR have no RTM options.
Of course, there is no limit on how many players a franchise can buy back if they happen to put the top bids for them in normal bidding at the auction.
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