A view of the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The mega auction ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on November 24 and 25, the BCCI announced on Tuesday (November 5, 2024).
This is the second successive year the auction is being held overseas as Dubai hosted the previous one ahead of the IPL 2024.
The player registration officially closed on Monday (November 4, 2024) and a total of 1,574 cricketers (1,165 Indian and 409 overseas) have been signed up for the auction, which will clash with the third and fourth day’s play of the first Test between India and Australia in Perth, which begins on November 22.
Each franchise will be able to form a maximum squad of 25 players (including respective retained players), and a total of 204 slots will be up for grabs from the auction.
The list includes 320 capped players, 1,224 uncapped players and 30 players from the Associate Nations.
Among capped players, 48 are from India. Moreover, 965 uncapped players of the country will also be part of the auction.
This year’s auction will feature some high-profile India stars such as Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Arshdeep Singh.
The 10 franchises will collectively have around ₹641.5 crore to spend for the available 204 slots.
Out of those 204 slots, 70 are earmarked for overseas players.
As of now, 46 players have been retained by the 10 franchises with cumulative expenditure of ₹558.5 crore.
Each franchise was allocated ₹120 crore to build their squads but after the retention process, which was announced on October 31, Punjab Kings have the biggest purse — ₹110.5 crore.
The Punjab outfit retained just two uncapped players — Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh for ₹9.5 crore.
Rajasthan Royals, under Sanju Samson, have the smallest purse of ₹41 crore after retaining six players.
The Kolkata Knight Riders have also retained six players but they have a remaining purse of ₹51 crore.
Published – November 05, 2024 09:47 pm IST